


in a box that reads lost and found

by almostoutofminutes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Unwind, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 44,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostoutofminutes/pseuds/almostoutofminutes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, parents can have their children unwound, harvesting nearly one hundred percent of their body for transplant into other humans. When someone is unwound, no part of them actually dies, so their life doesn't technically end. It was supposed to be a peaceful compromise, a solution to the Second Civil War fought over reproductive rights.  </p><p>For Scott and Stiles, it's anything but peaceful. Both sentenced to unwinding in moments of sickness and corruption, the two of them must fight for their lives as they struggle to make it back to home and safety. Even if home turns out to be where they least expect it. Unwind!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the 2016 Teen Wolf Big Bang. It turned out to be way longer than I thought, and the longest piece I've ever written. I'm very proud of even finishing it. What I'm NOT proud of is how long it took. 
> 
> This piece is based on the book Unwind by Neal Shusterman. It's a fantastic book with fantastic sequels, and I highly recommend all of them. Knowledge of the books isn't strictly necessary to read this fic, although you might understand the world a little better, since Shusterman dedicated a lot more time and effort to establishing the psyche behind unwinding than I did. 
> 
> The art is provided by [Ibrahil](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/). Not only is the art gorgeous, but Ibrahil was actually a pinch hitter, since my poor planning meant I turned my piece in as a second chance submissions. So it's gorgeous AND speedy.
> 
> So here it is! Enjoy! Title comes from "I'm Already Gone" by A Day to Remember.

He’s asleep when it all comes crashing down. It’s four in the morning and he’s just fallen into fitful dreams when the door to his bedroom crashes open. There’s a hailstorm of boots on the hardwood floors in the hallway, and then rough hands are grabbing him by the arms and hauling him to his feet.

“Confirm you’re….” One of the juvey cops -- because they're obviously juvey cops -- stumbles over Stiles’ first name, furrowing his brow as he tries to remember it. His hand flits towards a piece of white paper sticking out of his pocket, and the silence only gets more awkward the longer it continues.

While Stiles would normally take great pleasure in watching someone flounder, his mind is darting from one place to another too fast to land on one thing. It’s late -- these are juvey cops -- his mother is standing right outside his doorway, hands wringing -- his dad must be at work -- these are juvey cops -- juvey cops collect unwinds --

“What are you doing here?” is what he settles on. It’s an underwhelming question, and doesn’t even begin to encapsulate everything he’s feeling, everything he wants to know. Apparently it doesn't matter, though, because the juvey cops won't give him an answer.

“Confirm you’re….” The second juvey cop, slightly taller and with a gaunt face, doesn’t do any better with the pronunciation. He just furrows his brow and grips Stiles' arm a little harder, like it’s his fault he has an unpronounceable first name.

“He goes by Stiles, just call him that,” his mother interjects. There’s a hard expression on her face, only slightly offset by the confused and slightly vacant look that lives in her eyes. She's dressed in a robe and slippers, but Stiles has seen her when she first wakes up, and she's never this alert. She must have been waiting up for this.

“Mom?” The pieces are starting to slide into place, but Stiles isn’t sure he wants to see the picture that's forming. “Mom, what’s going on?”

“Confirm you’re Stiles Stilinski.” The first juvey cop is back on track now, his voice sharp with impatience. Instead of grabbing the paper, he whips out a pair of soft, padded handcuffs, and slaps them on Stiles' wrist. They're so different from the handcuffs his dad uses; there's no bite of steel, no sharp edges. These are built to detain, but more than that, they're built to protect the hands and wrists from harm, so that nothing gets damaged during transport.

They're built for unwinds.

That's not right. None of this is right. It's surreal, it's confusing, and it feels like it should be happening to someone else, like this is an open case file he flipped through at the police station. "Where's Dad?"

"We need verbal confirmation that you're Stiles Stilinski," the shorter juvey cop barks. "So  _ confirm it _ ."

"No."

"Confirm you're Stiles Stilinski."

" _ No. _ "

"Just do it, Stiles."

The look in his mom's eyes scares him, but it's one he's seen before. She's looking at him with anger, disgust, and just the slightest hint of fear, like she expects him to grow horns and a tail and maul her to death on the spot.

It's part of her illness, the doctor explained. Among other things, the dementia causes her to be extraordinarily paranoid, to see enemies where none exist. Including her own son.

That's when it all clicks into place. The juvey cops, the handcuffs, his mother, everything. "Mom, what did you do?" he asks, his eyes widening. Horror is starting to choke him up, making it hard to force words through his teeth. "Are you having me  _ unwound _ ?"

"Of course I am. What else am I supposed to do when my own son keeps threatening my life?" She holds her head up high, sneering down her nose at him, but there's a quiver in her lip and a tear in her eye that belies her terror.

Her conviction is probably the worst part. Not only has she done this, signed the order to have him unwound _ ,  _ but she believes without a doubt that it's the right thing to do. His mother believes that having his body surgically torn apart, every usable bit of him sent away for transplant into another human being, is the right thing to do. She believes  _ killing _ him is the right thing to do.

Even if that's not what the law says she's doing. _Unwinding isn't death, it's just a different way of life._ _Every part of the body is transplanted into other people, so no part of you ever really dies. You just enter a divided state._

Suddenly those brochures he'd flipped through while waiting in the doctor's office don't seem so harmless. The cheerful, picturesque harvest camps with shiny-teeth counselors and an army of surgeons. The kids who are there one day, gone the next.

That's going to be him. That's where his mother is sending him.

Her hand clenches and unclenches nervously, and that’s when he notices she’s holding something. A piece of pink paper with faint, gray lettering. Like the bottom piece of a paper filled out and signed in triplicate.

It’s her copy of the unwind order. Pink for the parents, yellow for the harvest camp, and white for the cops.

It feels like shrapnel is bursting through his chest and into his heart, shards as sharp as steel buried inside the deepest parts of him. It’d be impossible for him to forget her hatred, her paranoia, the way she'd sometimes fly at him with fists clenched because she thought he was about to attack her, but he never thought it'd get this far. He never thought she'd actually try to get rid of him.

Then it hits him; there was always something standing in her way when she got in one of her moods. Someone that kept it from getting out of hand.  _ Dad would never let her do this. _

The juvey cops have let them have their moment, so far, smirking back and forth between them like it's fun, like they're enjoying this. But the tall, scarecrow cop must see the hope blooming on Stiles' face, because he frowns and gives Stiles' arm a sharp tug towards the hallway. "Let's go. You've caused your mother enough pain."

"Both parents have to sign an unwind order," Stiles blurts, planting his bare feet so the officer can't pull him towards the door. His words start to come out faster and faster as desperation filters through his bloodstream. He can't let this happen. This isn't  _ right. _ "It doesn't matter if my mom signed it, because my dad has to sign it too, and he would never, ever do that. Never, not in a million years."

"Hate to break it to you, kid, but both of your parents  _ did  _ sign the unwind order," the first cop says, finally pulling out the piece of paper sticking out of his pocket. His thick, sweaty fingers crumple the edges of the document, staining it lightly.

Stiles is reeling. His dad signed it? "Let me see," he says, voice cracking slightly as he reaches for the paper with his cuffed hands. The officer pulls it back while his partner keeps a firm grip on Stiles' arms, bringing them back down to his sides.

"Nope, you can't touch. But if you really want to see...." The cop unfolds it and holds it up in front of Stiles' face, right in front of his nose.

There, at the bottom of the triplicate form, are two spaces for parental signatures. And the spaces are both filled.

The signatures are familiar. His mother's loopy C and swirly a's, his dad's unintelligible first name followed by a cursive “Stilinski” that looks strangely utilitarian. For a moment, Stiles honestly believes his dad has signed the order, and his reality breaks in two. Nothing makes sense, everything is wrong, and he's not sure there'll be any brain matter left for them to unwind, not after this implosion.

But his mother isn't a criminal mastermind. He catches the flaws within seconds.

There's a hesitation mark in his dad's signature, as if the person writing had to pause in the middle of it. And if he looks carefully, he can see slight errors in the way she shaped her letters, tiny flourishes she couldn't hide even while copying her husband's style.  

She forged his signature. Dad probably has no idea this is happening.

"No!" he protests, struggling against the grip on his arms. "This isn't real, okay? This is fake, I swear to god. Just call my dad, okay? He's the Sheriff of Beacon Hills, it won't be that hard to reach him, he'll just--"

"Enough," Scarecrow barks. "That's your father's signature, and you're coming with us."

The walls are closing in. Or at least, that's what it feels like. Really, it's just him getting closer to the hallway, being dragged against his will from his own bedroom because his mother is sick. He tries his best to slow their progress, but the juvey cops are used to resistant kids. He drags his feet, and they just pull harder. He grips the doorway, and they pry his fingers loose. All while his mother looks on, backing up to let them pass by as her eyes flicker nervously.

"Mom! Mom, please don't do this!" Stiles' voice is a hoarse cry, at this point, clogged with tears and panic. "You're sick, it's all in your head, remember? I'm not going to hurt you, no one is, it's just the disease making you think--"

"Shut up!" she shrieks back. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She's having an episode, her presence of mind swirling down the drain and out of sight. "Get him out of here! He's trying to kill me,  _ get him out. _ "

Her burst of energy propels her forward, her fists landing hard on his chest, his shoulders, his collarbone. The juvey cops freeze for a second, surprised, before Scarecrow lets go of Stiles’ arm and steps forward. “Ma’am,” he says with barely concealed disgust. “Step away from the kid. He’s a ward of the state, now. That’s government property you’re wailing on.” It takes some wrangling, but he manages to crowd the enraged woman back down the hallway, easily holding her frail arms down by her sides.

Maybe it’s the cop’s words,  _ government property _ , that finally do it. Maybe it’s watching his mother try to bash in his ribcage  _ again _ because of fucked up chemistry in her brain. Or maybe he’s just had enough of all this bullshit.

Whatever it is, Stiles shatters.

Any composure he had, which wasn’t much to begin with, evaporates like so much steam. In an instant, he’s thrashing, frothing, kicking out at whoever is near him in an effort to get away. The only thoughts in his head are escape and survival. Like a caged animal. Or like his mother.

The cop still holding him is caught off guard. His grip on Stiles’ arm loosens just enough for Stiles to break free and backhand him with the combined weight of his cuffed hands. From there it's just a straight shot down the hallway, where he nearly falls headlong down the stairs in his haste.

He's got the front door wide open and a foot out on the porch, inches away from fresh night air, when a hand grabs the scruff of his neck. Everything is a blur of skin and clothing, right up until his face is mashed into the carpet and there's a foul-smelling breath right at his ear.

“Is that all you got?” the cop hisses. It sounds like Scarecrow. “I do this for a living, kid, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“Let go of me!” Stiles shrieks, writhing madly. “She’s insane, she’s fucking  _ insane _ , don’t you get it? She forged his signature, it isn’t real. My dad will--”

“Shut  _ up _ .” The cop leans in and, impossibly, puts more force on Stiles’ back. Stiles is really starting to panic now, barely taking in enough oxygen to keep himself conscious. But no matter how hard he struggles, he can’t break free.

For a second, he thinks the cop is going to kill him, right here in his childhood home. He could probably claim it was self-defense. He could say Stiles pulled a weapon on him, that he felt his life was threatened. No one would bat an eye. No one would care, except his dad.

He’s an unwind, now. His right to life is forfeit.

It’s only when he falls still, face red and vision spotty, that the cop pulls away and hauls him to his feet. As soon as he gets a good look at Stiles’ face, the cop snickers. “Crying? Really?”

Stiles doesn’t have an answer for him. He hadn’t even noticed the tears streaming down his face, hadn’t noticed anything but the hopelessness. It’s all around him. In the handcuffs, in the tranq guns holstered at the cops’ belts, in the determination in his mother’s eyes. There’s no way out of this. Not at this juncture.  

As he’s being tugged out the door, he does the only thing he can think to do: he turns around and looks his mother dead in the eye. And once he’s done that, once he’s latched onto a gaze that looks too much like his own, he says the only thing he can think to say: “I don’t forgive you. And I never will.”

And with that, he’s stolen from the house, the shattered pieces of his life scattered in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have nor do I know anyone with frontotemporal dementia. I went with the story the show gave us in Season 5, with the condition making his mom paranoid and violent. When I looked it up, though, certain web pages said that it doesn't actually affect a person's perception. So if her paranoia is unrealistic, I apologize.


	2. Chapter 2

For Scott, the world doesn't end with a crash. It ends with the soft scratch of pencil on paper.

Dozens of kids are crammed into a gymnasium that reeks of sweat and too much industrial floor polish, each of them armed only with a writing utensil and a test booklet. Scott can practically smell the anxiety in the air, unbelievably dense, oozing off of every kid in thick clouds. Or maybe that’s just the carbon dioxide building up from their exhales, unable to escape through the closed windows and broken ventilation.

They’re twenty minutes into their tests, but Scott hasn’t bubbled in a single answer. His senses are running haywire. His eyes keep clouding up, unable to focus on the words in front of him, and his fingers clutch the pencil too tightly, breaking the tip whenever he puts it to paper. Sharpening it with the state-provided pencil sharpener only seems to make it duller, and the shavings are scattered all over his desk like sawdust. Even his hearing is too sharp, too loud, every shuffling paper, cough, and creak of a rusty chair leg amplified until it’s reverberating in his skull.

He hates it. It makes him want to escape, makes him want to push away from the table and run until his asthma brings him to a grinding halt. So, like, the school parking lot.

But he can’t do that. This test is everything. It determines the rest of his life, his survival. It determines whether he gets to keep his body for himself or has to give it up for the greater good. It determines whether or not he’s unwound.

And he’s choking.

He’s studied for this, he  _ has _ . He studied for it harder than he’s ever studied for anything in his life. He spent hours and hours in the clinic with Deaton, learning how to splint a dog’s broken leg, how to diagnose pneumonia in cats, how to handle irrational and terrified owners who don’t know a hairball from a hairbrush. And he’s  _ good  _ at it. He chose veterinary practice as his area of study for a reason; it  _ fits _ .

But here he is, unable to remember the typical health issues associated with different dog breeds. Unable to remember the procedure for when an animal has a seizure. How to treat pancreatitis. How to dress a wound. He could do it if he had the materials in front of him; he’s always learned better with his hands. But when it comes to scantrons and pencils, he’s lost. Confused. Stupid.

There's no chance of cheating his way out of this, either. They're all crammed right next to each other, barely three feet apart, but they're seated in tiny cubicles, and a thick plastic wall separates him from the kids on either side. Not only that, but they're taking different tests than he is. Wards of the state all have different areas of study, and their tests are tailored to that. They could be furiously bubbling in answers to questions about physics, or classic literature, or plumbing. As far as Scott knows, he’s the only veterinary student in the entire state ward.

Not that he’d cheat even if he could. He can imagine Deaton’s reaction: subtle, understated, just a slight downturn of the corners of his mouth, his brow furrowed the barest amount. It cuts deep. He couldn’t deal with that, not from the one person he can rely on.

“Hey, shut up,” the kid to his left hisses, leaning back in his chair slightly so he can glare at Scott. It’s only then that Scott realizes he’s breathing heavily, every inhale and exhale wheezing out of his mouth with force. And just like that, as soon as he notices it, the tightness in his chest becomes obvious, like he’s wrapped in a thick rubber tire that’s getting smaller and smaller.

He’s having an asthma attack. Or a panic attack. Or both. He's being  _ attacked _ .

The pencil snaps in half as he white-knuckles it. He tries to remain calm, but it’s too late. The floodgates have opened. His muscles tense up, his vision is criss-crossed with black spots, and his head is filled with the buzzing of insects ramming against the walls of his skull. Worst of all, always worst of all, is the way his airways are constricting, his breaths coming short and sparse as if through a straw.

“Dude,  _ stop _ ,” the kid says, a bit louder. His chair creaks, but Scott barely notices the noise, barely notices the way he’s leaning out of his own chair, barely notices when he slides out of it and lands on the sticky gymnasium floor.

One thought makes it through his head, but only because it’s been ingrained in him ever since he was diagnosed, as vital as the breath he’s trying to steal back:  _ inhaler _ .  _ Grab the inhaler _ . It’s in his backpack, in an easy-to-reach pocket, clearly labeled for anyone to find. He reaches for it.

It’s not there. They aren’t allowed backpacks during the test, so his backpack is sitting in the locker room among all the other ones.

A pair of legs clad in threadbare jeans appear in front of him. Legs turn into a torso turns into a face with a furrowed brow and pronounced frown, peering into his eyes. It’s hard to tell with his vision so spotty, but Scott thinks it might be the proctor. The man opens his mouth, but the words sound like static to Scott’s hazy, panicked brain, and the only response he can manage is a quiet, “Asthma.”

The man says something else. Scott doesn’t hear him, because the man is part of a world he’s rapidly falling away from. He’s just so tired. He wants the anxiety and panic to be  _ over _ , wants to let go into the empty darkness that’s waiting just on the peripheries of his mind.

So he does. The last thing he remembers is his blank answer sheet, not a single answer bubbled in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have asthma, so I'm not sure how it works beyond what I've gleaned from the internet. If it's inaccurate or overblown or whatever, I apologize.


	3. Chapter 3

They don’t take him to the police station. Or, they do, but not the one he’s used to.

Even in a town as small as Beacon Hills, the juvenile police force is in high demand. Whether it’s local kids or AWOLs from across state lines, there are always unwinds to catch, and there have to be juvey cops available to do it. The overcrowding eventually necessitated the construction of a second police station in another part of town, this one exclusively run by and for the juvenile division of the BCPD. The precincts work together, trading officers now and then to work joint cases, but for the most part, they remain separate. So while Stiles knows the police station like the back of his hand, and can list the birthdays of most of the officers who work there, he knows next to nothing about the juvey station.

It’s just another layer of suffocating fear. He could handle being thrown in a holding cell if he knew he was just a dozen yards from his dad’s office, from Parrish’s desk, from any of the people he’s known since he was a toddler running around waving a toy gun. But as soon as they park the squad car in an unfamiliar parking lot, Stiles knows: this is uncharted territory.

“Move it,” the shorter cop snaps, tugging Stiles out of the car by his upper arm. He doesn’t even blink when Stiles hits his head on the ceiling of the car and swears. “The sooner I drop you off, the sooner I can clock out.”

“Got a hot date planned?” Stiles mutters under his breath, wincing when the officer just tightens his grip. The guy has nails like a harpy.

When they enter the building, barely anyone looks up. A couple officers glance up when they hear Stiles’ quiet, shuddering breaths, but their gazes are filled with nothing but boredom and scorn. Seeing terrified, sobbing kids is part of their job description, after all.

“Stiles?”

Stiles whips around so fast his neck cracks. There, in the corner of the room, talking quietly with an officer Stiles doesn’t recognize, is Deputy Parrish, his eyes wide with shock. There’s a thick file in his hand, and Stiles vaguely remembers his dad putting Parrish on a B&E case involving a minor. He thanks whoever is listening that it put Parrish right here, right now, right when he needs him most.

“Parrish,” he calls, “Please, call my dad. Call him. Something’s wrong, my mom forged his signature on an unwind form, they’re taking me--”

“Shut  _ up _ ,” the cop snaps, pulling so hard that Stiles nearly trips. He’s trying to get Stiles moving, drag him towards a hallway that presumably leads to holding cells, but Stiles finds the will power to dig his feet in. It gives Parrish the time to make his way across the room, hope spreading through Stiles’ body thick and slow like molasses.

“Excuse me, Officer. Can you tell me what’s going on, here?” Parrish asks. His words are professional, but his tone is clipped and his eyes are hard.

“None of your business,” the cop snaps. It’s only now, when Stiles sees Parrish’s name tag, that he thinks to look at the other cop’s: Haigh. A surprisingly ordinary name, for such an extraordinarily douchey human being.

“It is when forgery might be involved,” Parrish says, folding his arms. “Have you even tried to confirm things with the Sheriff, see if he actually signed the form?”

“No need. It’s not standard procedure, and we’re not just going to waste money and time on the word of an unwind.”

Parrish’s jaw ticks. “Then do it on the word of a fellow officer. I know the Sheriff personally, and he would  _ never _ consent to having his son unwound.”

“That’s not my problem,” Haigh says. His mouth is smiling, but his expression is anything but kind, eyes vicious and sharp. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Deputy, I have to take care of the trash.” He pats Stiles on the shoulder with his free hand, slapping his skin too hard and too loud.

“Fuck off, short stack,” Stiles snaps.

Without hesitation, the cop pulls his hand back and slaps Stiles in the back of the head, so hard and heavy that he sees stars. Stiles and Parrish both cry out, and Parrish makes an aborted move forward. “Hands off!” he snaps.

“We done here?” Haigh asks, but he turns away before Parrish can answer him. “Come on, kid.”

“Call dad,” Stiles tries again as he’s tugged away. He cranes his neck to maintain eye contact with Parrish, drinking in his friendly face one last time. He doesn’t even care that his voice is getting thick with panic and tears again, not even in front of all these people. “Please, call him.  _ Help me _ .”

Parrish is already pulling out his radio, his hand poised on the button. “We’ll get this sorted out, Stiles. Just hang tight.”

Stiles tries to nod back, but he’s already being pulled down the hallway, which is lit only with dimmed fluorescent bulbs. At the end of it, there’s a sharp left turn that leads to another hall, this one lined with small holding cells, each with a cot and a toilet. Some of them are occupied with unwinds, but their bodies are shrouded by blankets and shadows, snores ringing out from their hidden mouths.

Stiles is tossed inside an empty cell at the very end of the hall. It’s only as the door is swinging closed and latching with a shrill clang that Stiles remembers his hands. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asks bitterly, holding out his cuffed wrists.

Haigh looks him over from outside the cell, eyes narrowed in thought. Then he bares his teeth in a mean smile. “Nope, don’t think so.”

“You have to uncuff me,” Stiles says, frowning. “I’m already locked up, you can’t just--”

“We can if we consider the unwind a flight risk, or at risk for self-injury,” Haigh says, like he’s reciting from a textbook. He smirks. “And you definitely seem the type.”

The cop turns and walks away without another word, whistling to himself as he swings his keys in a wide arc.

Stiles looks around at his cell, taking in the rusty cot frame and the dents in the stainless steel toilet. The door is made of bars, just like at his own police station, and the metal is rusted through in some places. There’s even a chunk missing from the wall, like someone took a sledgehammer to the cinderblock and no one ever bothered to fix it. He can’t hear the buzz of conversation or the ringing of phones anymore, and the tiny window near the ceiling lets in only the barest of light from the coming dawn.

More than anything, though, the cell is small. Suffocating. Like the world doesn’t exist outside of his little seven-by-seven cage.

He knows that this building is full of people. He knows that some of them are just a few feet away, asleep in their cots, alive and breathing as much as he is. But knowing and feeling are two different things, and Stiles can’t help but feel that he’s trapped miles and miles away from anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me about Jordan Parrish and how precious he is.


	4. Chapter 4

Scott wakes up like he always does after an attack: disoriented, scared, and in an incredible amount of pain. It doesn’t take long to figure out he’s in a hospital, though. It never does, what with the harsh fluorescent lights, beeping machines, and itchy hospital gown.

It’s not abnormal for him to end up in a hospital after an attack that severe, but it still gets him every time. The agonizing breaths, the distant buzz of hospital staff out in the hallway, the face mask pumping oxygen into his lungs. They’re all just a reminder that this has happened before, and that it’ll definitely happen again. It’s his lot in life. It’s as much a part of his body as the lungs themselves.

He still expects to see his mom, though. She used to be waiting by his side every time this happened. She’d hold his hand and hum him lullabies, or flip through the chart at the end of his bed, as if there was any new information for her to learn about the disease they already knew he had. It used to make him smile, even through the discomfort, because it always made him feel like he had someone in his corner. Someone who would always keep looking for ways to help him, even if he can’t be helped.

It’s been years since he’s woken up to her face, but it’s still a disappointment every time he finds himself alone.

He’s already settling into worn grooves of melancholy when he remembers everything else: the exam, the empty bubble sheet, the passing out on a gymnasium floor.

He didn’t finish the test.

He bolts upright in bed, causing the oxygen mask to pull taut and slip off his nose. With a rough scrape of his hand, he tears it off and throws it to the side, then heaves his legs off to the side of the bed. He tries to stand up, but has to sit back down when something thick and sharp pulls at the skin of his hand: his IV. Grabbing it with shaky fingers, he tugs it out in one quick swipe, wincing at the rip of tape and the bubble of blood that wells up to the surface.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

His head whips up. Standing in the open doorway to his room is a short, severe nurse with bright red hair and a scowl on her face. She’s holding a chart, which isn’t unusual, but she’s white-knuckling it like she plans to beat him with it.

“Um….”

“Get back in bed,” she snaps, striding forward. Scott shrinks back when she raises her hand, but she just reaches behind him to adjust something on one of the bedside machines.

“I need to talk to…” Who exactly does he talk to about this? Who deals with state wards taking their aptitude tests? His sluggish brain can’t think of an answer.

The nurse isn’t listening to him anyway. “I don’t know who lowered the dosage. You weren’t supposed to wake up yet.”

She glances down at him. Her eyes flit to his hand, and the frown lines on her face deepen. With pursed lips, she crosses the room to a set of gray drawers and pulls one open. She rummages around for a second before pulling out a handful of packages, including a small needle. Another IV.

Scott shakes his head. “No, I don’t need that. I’m okay now, I just had an asthma attack. I get them all the time, I don’t--”

“Settle down,” the nurse says in what she probably thinks is a soothing voice. She pushes him back into a sitting position.

“I’m telling you, I don’t need--”

“I said  _ settle _ .” She shoves him back even further so that he’s pressed against the pillows. With quick, curt movement, she unwraps a disinfectant wipe and starts swiping it in the crook of his elbow.

“What are you giving me?” Scott asks, breathy with impending panic. His chest is already sore, and each quickening breath is like fire. He wants to fight back, but he’s tired and she’s a nurse, just like his mom. She wouldn’t  _ hurt  _ him, would she? “What’s in there?”

“Just something to help you sleep,” she says, her lip curling up in an entirely unconvincing smile.

“I don’t need to sleep,” Scott protests. He tries to tug his arm away, but her grip is like iron.

This isn’t normal. Whenever an asthma attack put him in the hospital before, they examined him and let him go. He didn’t need follow-up like this, and he certainly didn’t need an IV to put him to sleep. Something’s not right.

She unwraps the IV needle and, without warning, pierces the tip through Scott’s skin. Scott jerks, but she keeps his arm still and her aim is true; the needle goes in, and she places a piece of pale tape on top to keep it in place.

“There,” she says with finality, patting him on the shoulder. He tips to the side under the weight of her hand. “All better.”

He still needs to talk to Deaton, but she won’t let him get up or leave the room. Within minutes, the IV takes effect, and he stops wanting to leave. Movement is hard right now. So is thinking. Everything is hard.

No, everything is soft. His head. Colors. This bed. His eyelids sink down, down, until all he sees is dark.

He’s asleep before the nurse even leaves the room.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence in this chapter. It isn't anything we haven't seen in the show, but still.

Stiles doesn’t sleep.

Part of it is the sunlight that started peeking through the window once the sun came up. It’s not a lot of sunlight, but the grimy window still manages to diffuse it all around the room, giving his cell a hazy, green-tinted glow. There’s also the truly fearsome snoring coming from the cell next door, the walls practically vibrating from the force of it.

Most of all, though, it’s the fear. What if he closes his eyes and wakes up in a harvest camp? Strapped to a gurney in an operating room? What if he closes his eyes, and the next time they open, they’re not even his anymore? Sold, transported, transplanted into someone else whose need outweighed his life?

_ No. You’re not really dying, remember? It’s just entering a different state of being. The divided state. _

All of the elementary school educational videos in the world couldn’t have prepared him for this. All the health classes, all the surgeons who guest-lectured at his high school, all the community fundraisers for harvest camps, all of it--

None of it. None of it really seems to matter right now. You can do everything right, you can believe everything you’re told and take it as gospel, and things can still bite you in the ass.

No. Stiles doesn’t sleep much at all.

Which is why he’s wide awake when he hears footsteps coming from the down the hall, quick and even. There’s something about them, the hard heel of a boot, the jangle of keys on a belt, the heavy shuffle of a canvas jacket--

“Stiles?”

Dad.

Stiles is out of bed and at the cell door before he can even take a breath. “Dad, oh my god. Dad.” It’s all he can say, the words coming out choked and guttural. “Dad. Dad, help. Please.”

“It’s okay, Stiles. I’m gonna sort this out,” the Sheriff says softly, putting a hand around one of the bars on the door. Stiles puts his on top of it, fingers tightening until they’re blanched white.

The Sheriff turns around, craning his body so he can keep his hand in place. “What the hell is going on here, Haigh?”

It’s only then that Stiles notices Haigh standing in the background, his arms crossed. “He’s an unwind,” he says blandly. He glances down at the badge pinned to the Sheriff’s chest and purses his lips. “Sir.”

“No, he’s not. You know how I know that? I’m his father.”

The officer shrugs. “We have the order form, sir. In triplicate. Signed by both parents.”

“Show me.”

Haigh narrows his eyes. “I don’t have to answer to you.”

“But you  _ do _ have to answer to Sheriff Lowell,” the Sheriff counters. “And--”

“Didn’t you hear?” Haigh interrupts. “Lowell was promoted. It went into effect yesterday.” His hands settle on his belt, the leather of his holster creaking slightly. His smirk is thick and oozing. “Donati is the juvey sheriff now.”

Underneath Stiles’ own hand, the Sheriff’s fingers have tightened around the metal bar, rubbing against it with a faint groan.

“Donati,” he repeats, his voice flat. Stiles frowns, and it only deepens when his father’s hand slips from his own to hang limply at his side.

“Yeah,” Haigh says. “Donati.”

There’s a moment of silence where Stiles can feel his hope leaking out of him like helium. There’s a tick in the Sheriff’s jaw, a tension in his shoulders even under the lines of his coat, and none of it spells out good news.

“Alright. Take me to the Sheriff.” He turns and smiles at his son, but it’s muted at best. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m just gonna go sort this out.”

Stiles can tell his dad is trying. He’s using his calm voice, the steady and authoritative tone he uses to corral witnesses and command officers. But Stiles has known him all his life. He knows all his tics, all his tells and habits.

His dad is worried.

⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫

It’s hours before they come back. Hours and hours of Stiles worrying and overthinking without really thinking at all, pacing back and forth like it’s a sport.

He’s been trying to sort through his memories of Deputy (now Sheriff) Donati. There are vague memories from when Stiles was little, flashes of a thin, reedy man with a drooping face and a moustache to match. And something about a kid that Stiles is fairly certain he didn’t like, a brat named Daniel or Devin or something. But those were the years when his mom first started getting sick, so Stiles didn’t pay much attention to the outside world, and the details are hazy. All he knows is that at some point, the droopy man stopped coming around as often.

Based on his dad’s reaction to the name, it was anything but an amicable break-up.

Somehow, despite all the evidence saying his luck is shit and he’s fucked six ways from Sunday, Stiles assumes the Sheriff will find a way. He always has. He’s had to, with a kid that spent more time in the principal’s than any other Beacon Hills public student (he asked). So it’s supposed to be his dad that comes walking around the corner, tired and angry but with keys in his hand. He’s supposed to unlock the cell door and plant a heavy hand on the nape of Stiles’ neck. It’s something he does whenever he wants to herd his son like an unruly pet, but this time it’ll be a little gentler. A little less heat and a little more warmth.

The alternative is unthinkable. The idea that his dad could fail, that Stiles could be carted away, cut into pieces, and donated, stabs deep and hits hard.

But it isn’t his dad that walks around the corner. It’s Haigh.

There’s a jangle of keys and the sharp scrape of metal against metal, and then he’s being tugged out of his cell like a dog on a leash. Haigh’s hand is iron around Stiles’ upper arm as he starts manhandling him down the hallway, towards a door at the end of the hallway, away from the rest of the precinct.

“What the hell is going on?” Stiles demands. He strains in the other direction, towards the bullpen and his father, but it’s no use. Every step is another few feet away from salvation, and he can’t do anything to stop it.

“Shut up and keep walking,” Haigh snaps.

“Piss off,” Stiles spits. “Where’s my dad? And what the hell is your problem? You know my parents, you have to know that my dad would never--” His eye catches on the stark red and white lettering of an emergency exit sign on the door. “What are you doing, you’re going to set off the--”

Haigh shoulders open the door and shoves Stiles through it, letting it close with a quiet thud behind them. Stiles stumbles against a railing, barely managing to catch himself with his bound hands. He’s on a small landing, a set of concrete steps leading down to a cramped area with overflowing dumpsters and a telephone pole. Around the corner is an alleyway, the hood of a car only just visible from where Stiles is standing.

Stiles turns and frowns up at the door, his thoughts racing. The only reason the emergency exit alarm wouldn’t go off is if didn’t work. Like if someone shut it off from inside the building. Which they would do if Haigh wanted to bring Stiles out the back door, isolated and away from the public eye. And the only reason Haigh would go to all that trouble is if he’s doing something under the table. Something he’s not supposed to do. Something illegal.

His eyes flick to Haigh just in time to see a hand lash out and shove at his shoulder, pushing him down the stairs. He lands on his back with a ragged cry and a sickening thud, jagged asphalt digging into his back even through his shirt. Every inhale is agony, like jagged shards in his shoulder blades as he tries to replace the breath that was knocked out of him.

“Jeez, I’m sorry.” Haigh saunters down the steps after him. “I hope that didn’t do any damage. You’re worth a lot less when you’re all banged up.”

Stiles turns over onto his stomach and pushes himself up onto all fours. Before he can heave himself to his feet, body aching, a boot comes down hard on his back, and he goes down once again. He feels a rock cut into the skin right below his eye. He can’t even muster the breath for another scream.

“You break him, you buy him, Haigh,” a new voice calls out. Footsteps cross the loose asphalt, and then rough hands are grabbing Stiles and flipping him onto his back. “Shit, he’s bleeding.”

It’s another juvey cop, a stocky woman with deep frown lines and dirty blonde hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Stiles doesn’t recognize her face or her name tag,  _ Rollins _ , but it isn’t hard to figure out why. Her uniform is different and the patch on her upper arm has a different county name; she’s from another precinct.

Haigh’s voice comes from somewhere behind Stiles’ head. “Remember, wait two days until you turn him in. The story is that--”

“--he escaped from your custody and ran south, and I caught him while on patrol. I’ll turn him in, and he’ll be added to our own unwind transfer out of Sacramento. He’ll be brought to the camp near Bakersfield ahead of schedule.” Rollins sounds bored and robotic, like she's giving a speech she was forced to memorize. She leans over Stiles and peers down at him with narrowed eyes. “Is he gonna cause any trouble?”

Haigh comes into view, walking around to stand behind Rollins with his arms crossed. “Nah, probably not. He’s a smart-ass, but he couldn’t win a fight against a twelve-year-old, and he knows it. He won’t try anything.”

“Is that true, boy?” Rollins asks, tilting her head. The corner of her mouth twitches. “Are you gonna behave?”

Stiles grits his teeth. This plan is clearly pre-meditated and planned in advance. It goes much deeper than just Haigh being an asshole; this was a set-up. How is he supposed to beat something like that? He’s still on the ground, his hands bound in front of him, wheezing gritty air through ribs that probably aren’t cracked but sure as hell feel like it. Fear is rushing through him like a paralytic, and his mind is racing faster than he can keep up with. He’s in no condition to fight back.

Not that Haigh is wrong. Fistfights have never been his style, not even when someone else throws the first punch. Ever since he lost a fight with Jackson Whittemore in the first grade, he figured his efforts were better spent honing other skills, things that could actually get him somewhere in life. Deduction, scheming, lying. Communication skills. Lot of good it’s doing him right now.

Still, if they say he’s all bark and no bite, he might as well make the bite worth something.

“Fuck off,” he spits, satisfied when Rollins blinks in surprise. The words start flowing out of him unbidden, driven more by raw anger than any logical train of thought. “You walk around like you’re fucking John Wayne but you guys are nothing more than glorified babysitters. You make a living catching scared, defenseless kids with nowhere to run and no one to turn to and then strut around like that makes you tough. All while  _ real  _ police officers like my dad do the dirty work, catching  _ real _ criminals and actually risking their lives. So you can go straight to hell.”

“Sheriff Stilinski is dead weight,” Haigh snaps. “He wouldn’t know good police work if it bit him in the ass.”

Stiles cranes his neck to get a better look at Haigh, ready to fire back with another retort. Then his eyes flick from the officer’s flared nostrils to his reddening complexion, ending on the way his arms have tensed where they’re crossed against his chest, and Stiles closes his mouth.

He can almost feel his brain slowing down to a workable speed as a plan starts to form. Haigh is pissed; he can use that.

“Didn’t you join the force before my dad, Haigh?” he asks. “By, like, five years? So why did my dad get promoted instead of you? Why did you get transferred here after fifteen years as an actual cop?”

“Shut up.” Haigh uncrosses his arms, fists clenched at his side.

“Clearly someone thought he was the better officer--”

“I said  _ shut up _ .”

“--and clearly someone thought you had to be demoted to the trumped-up version of a truancy officer, because what else is a middle-aged high school dropout with documented anger issues gonna be good for--”

With more speed than his bulky frame should allow, Haigh shoves Rollins to the side and plants the tip of his boot into his ribcage, somehow managing to hit the same spot over and over again. It doesn’t take long for the assault to stop, but then Haigh is kneeling right over him, his breath washing hot over Stiles’ face.

“Your father is a rat bastard,” he says, eyes alight with rage. “That’s why we’re doing this, you know. He screwed me over. Got me transferred just because some evidence went missing from the precinct. Accused me of being dirty. And I’m not the only one. A lot of people got a problem with your dad, and guess what? You’re the one that has to pay the price.”

Stiles groans. He’s never had broken ribs, so he doesn’t know if that’s what he’s feeling right now, but it doesn’t really matter; it hurts like a bitch. The pain is at a level he hasn’t felt before, not even when he fell out of a tree and broke his arm in second grade. Not to mention the verbal confirmation of what he’s been fearing all along; this is a conspiracy, planned out in advance to get back at the Sheriff. Stiles’ arrest was never supposed to be legal. It’s all about revenge. How is he supposed to keep himself safe if the law won’t help him? What use is fighting when it’s not a fight he can win?

But he forces himself to speak anyway, taking ragged breaths every few words. “You  _ are  _ dirty, you asshole. Or are you forgetting the very illegal shit you’ve got going on here? You’ll be lying in an official report. You’ve assaulted an unarmed prisoner. You lied to the Sheriff. How the hell do you see that as being clean?”

Haigh leans in even further, grabbing the front of Stiles’ shirt and hauling his torso a few inches off the ground. “Listen, you piece of--”

Stiles doesn’t waste any time. He throws his head forward with as much strength as he can muster and cracks it against Haigh’s nose. The impact hurts, and he’s fairly certain he’ll have a lump on his hairline, but it has the desired effect. Haigh backs off with a grunt, hand flying up to his face, and Stiles takes the opportunity to kick his foot up between his legs.

He goes down pretty easily after that.

Rollins, who had been standing to the side with a blank look on her face, springs towards him with her hands outstretched, but he rolls to the side and kicks wildly at her leg. His flailing foot makes contact with her kneecap and she goes down as well, a cry on her lips.

Scrambling to his feet is a lot harder when his hands are bound and his body is one giant bruise, but Stiles has desperation on his side. Within seconds, he’s up and stumbling away, making for the alleyway nearby. The emergency exit they came out of doesn’t open from the outside, but if he can get around the building to the front entrance and find his dad, then--

Something hard and fast collides with his shoulder, and he face plants on the asphalt. He can taste blood and dirt in his mouth, and his back is on fire. For one terrifying second, he thinks he’s been shot, but he can’t feel any blood.

“Shit, did you kill him?” he hears Haigh ask, his voice strained.

“Of course not, you moron. Rubber bullets,” Rollins replies. Her voice is drifting closer along with the sound of unsteady feet. She must be limping. Good.

He expects her to grab him and shift him onto his back, or maybe just pull him up into a standing position so she can shove him in her car. It’s what people have been doing to him all day; manhandling him like he’s livestock.

He doesn’t expect her to grip her pistol even harder and bring it down on his head.

He never sees it coming.


	6. Chapter 6

The next time Scott wakes up, it’s nothing like it usually is. He’s shaken awake by a pair of hard, calloused hands, his neck aching from the force of them. His blurry eyes flicker open just in time to see a red blob to his left, too close for comfort, as another set of hands grips his elbow and  _ tugs _ . The needle slips out of his arm, its path not straight enough to keep it from stinging. He tries to raise his arm in protest, pull it into his chest to protect it, but his wrist catches on the softened edge of  _ something _ that keeps him tethered to the railing of the bed.

It’s disconcerting, to feel so much fear before he’s actually awake. His body reacts before his mind does, his heart starting to race, his arms jerking against the restraints while his brain comes back online.

When his vision clears, the first thing he sees is the set of handcuffs tying his right wrist to the plastic railing of the hospital bed. The cuffs are padded with soft, industrial beige foam.

He’s seen them before.  

Sometimes kids from the state home act out too much. They show too little promise, they run away one too many times, they commit a crime or violent act that can’t be ignored. The nurses and social workers try to intervene, but their half-hearted, distracted efforts never really do any good. That’s when the juvey cops show up. They act like the state home is their own personal hunting ground, swaggering around the halls and staring kids down as if to say  _ you’re next _ before handcuffing the problem child and carting him away. Sometimes the kid goes quietly, but sometimes they don’t, crying and struggling and shouting abuse at everyone they lock eyes with. No matter what, though, they never seems to hurt themselves; their handcuffs are always padded to keep them from bruising or bleeding or breaking any bones. That way, none of their tissue is damaged before they’re unwound.

Because that’s where they’re going: to be unwound.

His first thought is that he failed his test. After countless hours studying and working with Deaton to improve his techniques, he still failed his veterinary exam, and now they’re going to unwind him. What state home wants to spend money on a kid who’s not smart enough to pass even a basic exam in their chosen field? What good is he, other than as a donor?

Then he remembers: he passed out before he could do anything but fill in his name. But that means he just has to take it again. They can’t hold it against him that he had an asthma attack and passed out, can they?

“What’s going on?” Scott asks, blinking the remaining spots out of his vision. The nurse is the one who pulled the IV out, but there’s a tall, gray-looking police officer standing next to her, his hand still on Scott’s shoulder.

No, not a police officer. A juvey cop.

The nurse fiddles with the machines next to his bed, switching them off one by one, and the cop turns away to mumble something into his radio. Neither of them answer his question.

“What’s going on?” he tries again. Maybe they’re just being cautious, maybe they’re not bringing him in after all. He shouldn’t panic before he has all the answers, right?

That’s when he catches what the cop is saying. “Unwind is secure. The doctors tell me he’s fine and in decent shape except for a pre-existing condition.”

Scott freezes. Any hope he had is gone, torn away like a half-woven spiderweb. “Wait, what? Unwind? But I didn’t even take my--”

“Apparently the kid has asthma,” the cop says, completely ignoring Scott. “Pretty severe, yeah.” There’s a burst of noise from the radio, too garbled for Scott to make out the words, but the officer seems to have no problem. He laughs. “They can’t all be Ferraris, right? We’ve just got ourselves a Pinto, here, that’s all.”

Scott recoils. Is that what he is to this man? A damaged model? Something to be stripped for parts?

The nurse is no more helpful. Once all the machines are off, she turns to leave, ignoring Scott’s frantic questions. He watches with increasingly damp eyes as she walks over to a nurse’s station and starts rifling through patient charts, picking up a bagel and gnawing on it absently. In her mind, he’s already forgotten.

The radio mutters again. “Alright, will do, sir.” The juvey cop finally turns his eyes on Scott. There’s no trace of laughter in his face now, just a stern set to his eyes that can’t quite hide his apathy. This is probably just another day of work for him. “Here’s how it’s gonna go, kid. I’m going to remove the left handcuff so that I can secure your hands together. If you scream, no one will help you. If you try to fight or run, I will bring you down. I don’t care if it means damaging the goods, because you’re probably not gonna fetch a hefty price anyway. Understand?”

Scott nods before he can stop himself. He’s always been one to obey authority, but he knows that now isn’t the time for that. He has to explain his situation, that’s the only way he’s going to get out of this. He screws up all the courage he can and opens his mouth. “But sir, I don’t understand. I didn’t take my test, so I didn’t actually fail it, and I haven’t done anything wrong. Why am I being unwound?”

The cop leans over Scott’s body so he can reach across and undo the restraints around his left wrist. He smells like cigarettes and too much laundry detergent. “I don’t know and I don’t care, kid. All I have is a file with your name on it that says you’re being sent to Camp Sequoia near Bakersfield.”

“That can’t be right, though. It must be some kind of filing error. I didn’t fail, okay? I didn’t fail!” Scott’s voice is getting louder with each word, even if he manages to keep himself from struggling against the officer’s harsh grip. The man is practiced and efficient, uncuffing his left wrist and then securing it in the same pair of handcuffs as his right wrist before Scott can even think about trying to hit him. After that, it’s just a matter of hauling Scott out of bed, the sheets tumbling to the linoleum floor. It’s only then that Scott realizes that he’s in thin cotton pajama pants and a white t-shirt instead of the hospital gown from before. Someone must have dressed him while he was drugged.

This was always the plan. The nurses prepared for it. That must be why he wasn’t supposed to wake up the first time; they didn’t want him to know what was happening until the moment it did.

“I need to talk to Deaton!” Scott says, his voice cracking slightly. He takes a deep breath and tries again, but his words are just as wobbly as before. “I need to speak with Dr. Alan Deaton. He’s a vet nearby, and my teacher. He can clear things up, he’ll know what to do. Please, I just need to see him!”

“No can do. I have my orders, kid.” The cop reaches down and grabs Scott’s bound hands, slapping something into one of his palms. It’s an inhaler. “Don’t die on us,” is all he says before he nods down at the floor. Next to Scott’s bare feet are a pair of white slip-on shoes. “Unless you want to spend the next few days barefoot, I suggest you put those on. We’re leaving in fifteen seconds.”

The tears finally start slipping out of Scott’s eyes. He hates them, hates that he can’t control it, hates that it’s his body’s natural response to despair. He always thought he’d get over it when he got older. Now he won’t be getting older at all.

Fingers shaking, he slips the inhaler into one of the pockets of his pajama pants. Then he leans down to pull on the shoes. It’s difficult, with his hands restrained in front of him, but he manages to do it before the officer grabs his upper arm and hauls him out into the hallway.

The nurses and doctors don’t spare him a single glance as he’s tugged towards the elevator. They’re probably used to this. It’s not that unusual for them. He used to think doctors and nurses were so wise and calm, and he would spend hours watching them with wide eyes while he waited for his mom to finish her shift. That’s part of why he wanted to be a vet; he wanted to be that collected, wanted to be a port in the storm for those who needed it, maybe make a difference in the process.

Now, though, the hospital staff don’t look wise, they look uncaring. They’re not cool, they’re cold. Scott’s mom always made him believe being a health care professional was about helping people and taking care of them. No one wants to help him now, though. The few looks he does get are full of boredom, annoyance, or faint disgust. These people want him gone because he’s a nuisance. They’ve decided he’s beneath them, and so they’re doing their best to ignore his existence.

Not that he’s new that kind of treatment. He’s a state ward, after all. Still, it burns to know that the world is that ready to throw him out like week-old trash.

Most of the patients don’t look at him either. It could be because of apathy, guilt, fear, anything, but it doesn’t matter, because all of it makes Scott feel more alone than ever. Invisible, except to the cop pulling him towards a finish line he’s not ready to cross.

When they finally reach the elevator doors, there’s a man standing in front of them, tapping his foot as he waits for it to arrive. He’s dressed in a janitor’s uniform with the hat pulled down low over his brow and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. When Scott and the cop pull up next to him, Scott sees the man jump slightly in surprise. When he turns his head for a closer look, the man’s thin shoulders are hunched slightly, and his head is turned almost imperceptibly away from them.

As if he can sense Scott’s gaze, the man glances at him. His eyes are wide and scared, his pale skin marred by a dark bruise around his eye. Scott can see a few dark blonde curls escaping from under the hat, but most of them are hidden by the white bandage peeking out from underneath the brim. He raises his arm to scratch at his eyebrow, as if to hide his face more, but all it does it let his sleeve ride up and reveal a hospital wristband. Scott catches the name  _ Isaac  _ and a birth year before it’s hastily hidden back in the dark blue sleeve.

He’s not a man at all. He’s a boy, a kid just like Scott, even if he  _ is _ alarmingly tall. And he’s posing as a janitor. Why?

Scott is still staring at him out of the corner of his eye when he hears a loud crash. Whipping around, he sees a figure towering over an IV stand tipped on its side. He’s a thick, angry-looking man, with a face that seems built for rage and nothing else. When he speaks, his voice comes out in a guttural roar that makes the skin of his cheeks quiver. “Where the hell is my son?”

The boy freezes and turns back towards the elevator, which is still whirring as it ascends. It doesn’t take long for Scott to put two and two together.

The juvey cop has also taken notice of the commotion behind them. One of the braver nurses is trying to calm the boy’s father down from his tantrum, but he’s having none of it, poking her in the shoulder with one finger as he demands a search of the entire hospital. “This is absolute bullshit. How do you lose a patient? He’s over six feet tall and has a giant shiner, how hard can it be to find him?”

The elevator finally dings. The cop looks back towards it, but his eyes catch on the boy in the janitor’s outfit, no doubt seeing the young features, the injuries, and the mounting panic in the boy’s eyes and coming to the same conclusion Scott did. His eyes narrow.

There’s no way this kid is going to survive an entire elevator ride without blowing his cover. Which means the cop can’t get in the elevator with him.

Which means Scott has to distract him.

He doesn’t stop to think about it. He doesn’t consider the fact that this kid may be a criminal, that he may be injured enough that leaving the hospital will do more harm than good, that his father may be all bark and no bite and he got the shiner somewhere else. He doesn’t know what this kid’s story is, but he doesn’t care. All he knows is that he looks at the boy and sees a version of himself that actually has a shot at survival.

If Scott can’t make it, then maybe someone else can.

So he turns around and rams into the juvey cop with his shoulder. It catches the man by surprise, enough that the two of them fall back against the wall with a hard thud. It doesn’t take long for Scott to lose the upper hand, though, and within seconds he’s back on the ground, the wind knocked out of him. He winces at the hand clamping down on the back of his neck.

He cranes his head up as far as he can and catches a glimpse of the boy, still wide-eyed and pale as he steps into the elevator and puts a hand up to the floor buttons. Then the sight is cut off by gleaming metal as the elevator doors close once more, whisking the boy down to the first floor and, hopefully, escape.

“You fucking dumbass” the cop hisses, too-hot breath right up against Scott’s ear. “Did you honestly think that would work?”

Scott just smiles into the bleached linoleum floor. He hurts all over, his situation is looking more and more bleak by the second, and he’s headed for an end to the only existence he’s ever known.

But he can hear the boy’s father still rambling on about searches and hospital security and calling the police, completely unaware that the boy is on his way out the front door. The cop is too distracted with Scott to remember or care about anything else. None of the hospital staff seem to realize what’s happening.

That kid, whatever his story may be, is one step closer to freedom.

Scott isn’t happy. He’s not sure he’ll be able to muster up true happiness ever again. But if he won’t ever reach it, then this moment comes pretty damn close.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are car crashes in here, in case that makes anyone nervous or upset.

Stiles is a weird kid. Self-proclaimed, mostly, but it isn’t hard to get other people to endorse that claim. He writes economics papers on the male circumcision, he stays up all night researching random topics like coal mining and the invention of chewing gum, and he decided at age five that he wanted to go by a first name that’s just a shortening of his last name. Anyone who bothers to give him a second thought usually agrees with his self-assessment. Vehemently.

What can he say? Having a sick-crazy mom and no friends sometimes does that to a person.

If he had to pick a crowning moment, though, it would be middle school. Thirteen years old. He watched some dime-a-dozen action flick where the damsel in distress is thrown in the trunk of a car, and that was it. He was obsessed. He did all the research, spent hours scouring the internet and reading adventure novels, but that wasn’t enough; if he was going to learn how to escape from the trunk of a car, he would need to test it out in real life.

Because it’s much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, he just went for it. He waited for his dad to get home, snuck out to his squad car, popped the lid, and threw himself inside. What followed was thirty minutes of blind experimentation that got him grounded for a solid month and put him a hundred dollars in the hole for repairs. But it worked. He learned how to do it.

And now, waking up gagged and bound in a small, bumpy container with zero light and a lot of noise, he’s never been more thankful.

Rollins must have thrown him in the trunk of her car to avoid detection. If their plan is to report that he escaped, then they can’t be seen with him in custody before he’s officially “caught.” That means he can’t just sit in the backseat, where anyone can see him, and she can’t keep an eye on him beyond what she can see in her rearview mirror. Unfortunately, escaping the back of the car would be much easier than escaping the trunk.

Good thing he’s a weird kid.

First, he takes out the gag. It's just a rag stuffed in his mouth, which is lazy at best, negligent at worst, but he's certainly not complaining. He's just glad she didn't tape it.

The next step is to kick out the taillights. The trunk doesn’t afford him a lot of room to pull his foot back, so he decides to try kicking back instead of forward. After a few awkward seconds of shuffling, he’s facing the back of the trunk instead of the front, nose wrinkling at the smell of musty fabric and motor oil. The first kick is unsuccessful, and the second one ends with him banging his knee by accident, but with the third kick, he hears the telltale crunch of the taillight coming out of its place. The noise of the road was already loud, but now it’s even louder. The roar of air passing by, the hum and growl of other engines, the occasional violent honking; he’s on a highway, not an isolated road.

It takes another few minutes of painful contortions, but he manages to twist himself so that he’s looking out onto the highway through the hole where the taillight used to be. The sky is thick and blue with twilight, not quite dark enough to warrant streetlights but hazy enough that some cars are turning on their headlights. The pink convertible driving right behind Rollins’ car, however, is not one of them. So while the driver may have seen the taillight fall out, there’s no guarantee they can see him inside the dark trunk, and he doubts the driver would hear him over the wind, or the music he can faintly hear blasting from their radio. He can’t count on them to call the police in time.

Even if the police got involved, would they side with him? Or would they believe whatever story Rollins came up with to explain herself?

A passing road sign announces a highway exit leading to Sacramento. If he’s seeing it from behind, that means they just passed through Sacramento. They’re almost halfway to Bakersfield.

That could mean anything, though. She wants him to be “caught” somewhere nearby so that he can be lumped in with some local town’s unwind transport, but that doesn’t mean he has to be caught  _ in  _ Bakersfield. It’s where she wants him to end up, but that’s not necessarily where she’s dropping him off. She could be minutes away from dumping him in some local precinct. Probably her own, so she can take the credit in front of her Sheriff, maybe get some brownie points out of all this.

Stiles taps his fingers together, a nervous habit that even being handcuffed can’t seem to break. On the one hand, the highway is a stupid move. If he manages to get out, he’ll be surrounded by witnesses that she’ll have to explain herself to. At the very least, it will get the media’s attention, and people will ask why an unwind was being transported illegally in the trunk of a juvey cop car.

On the other hand, the highway is weirdly brilliant. More witnesses also means more people who could keep him from evading custody. It’s hard to disappear when you're surrounded by people. Plus, he’d have to be an idiot to try escaping a car moving at seventy miles an hour.

So what’s riskier? Escaping from a car traveling down a busy highway, or escaping from a precinct full of armed and trained juvey cops?

Stiles takes a deep breath. Time to be an idiot.

There isn’t an emergency toggle for opening the trunk, as far as he can tell, which means she either had it removed or she’s driving an older car. There is, however, a trunk release cable. He has to dig around for a minute, his fingers clumsy from nerves, but eventually he finds it under the carpet. He gives it a sharp tug towards the front of the car, and the trunk pops open.

He would celebrate, but the sudden rush of air inside the trunk startles him. The noises are even louder, too, and he can finally get a clear view of the myriad lights gleaming in the dusk air, obscuring the boxy shadows of the cars.  

He struggles to his knees, heart pounding. If he’s not careful, the trunk will slam shut again, or he’ll fall out and turn into roadkill. Or he’ll fall out and cause an accident that turns other people into roadkill.

If he wants to escape with minimal damage, he has to get Rollins to pull over. That means she first has to notice something is wrong.

Easy enough.

Stiles crouches down so that the trunk is only open by an inch, making sure to keep it from closing with his hands. It’s hard to get momentum when he’s crammed almost prone, but when he pushes himself upward, the trunk lid supported by his back, he manages to open it with enough force that it rocks the back of the car. Rollins would have to be completely oblivious not to notice it, even in the dark. Just in case, though, he starts rocking from side to side, grasping the side of the car to keep his balance.

Then the car is swerving side to side on its own, and it’s suddenly much harder to keep from tumbling out. Rollins must be trying to shake him back into the trunk.

His feet are shuffling back to forth to keep him standing, but one particular swerve catches him off guard. His ankle twists as he falls over the side of the trunk, the metal digging into his ribcage. The trunk lid thumps down onto his back, and he shouts in pain, the sound fading into the wind.

White lights floods his vision, and he winces away from it. The pink convertible has finally turned its lights on. He imagines what he must look like to the driver; a teenager in pajamas sandwiched between the trunk and the lid, with his hands bound in front of him. He probably looks insane.

That’s what he wants, though; insane will get them pulled over.

He hears a muffled screech, and then the pink convertible is honking its horn over and over again until finally they just press down on it. The long, unending sound is enough to draw the attention of some of the cars around them, and Stiles sees a couple swerve in surprise.

The commotion works. Rollins starts to slow down and drift onto the shoulder of the highway. Stiles can see a cluster of houses not far away, a subdivision under construction. Since there aren’t many trees to lose himself in, he’ll have to hide among those houses. That is, if he can get past the couple hundred yards of open space standing in between him and safety.

Rollins apparently gets impatient with slowing down, because she barely hits thirty miles an hour before slamming on the brakes. Stiles slides forward slightly, still caught underneath the lid, but as soon as the car stops moving, he’s tumbling out of the trunk like a bat out of hell. The asphalt stings his knees and, when he manages to stand up, the bottoms of his bare feet, but he doesn’t care. He needs to get out of here as fast as he can. He can figure out shoes and undoing the handcuffs and finding adequate clothing when he’s put some miles between him and this damn car.

He expects her to come around the driver’s side of the car, which would give him ample space to run off the side of the highway and towards the subdivision. When he starts running in that direction, though, it’s only to run straight into Rollins herself. It’s too dark to see very clearly, but the passing headlights illuminate her enough to reveal the gun in her hand and the scowl on her face. It most likely has tranq or rubber bullets, not real ones, but that doesn’t make a difference. Both of them would mean recapture, if he’s dumb enough to stay in the line of fire.

Stiles keeps running, using his momentum to ram himself into her torso before she can fire off a shot. His head collides with her ribcage, and they both go down hard. Stiles hears the sharp crack of her skull hitting the pavement, feels the hot ooze of blood from scrapes on his knees and elbows. He recovers first, clambering to his knees and reaching for the gun still resting in her slack grip. By the time she manages to climb to her feet, he’s already standing far away, gun held between his hands. He has the proper stance and his grip is steady; if Rollins is even  _ sort of  _ good at her job, she must recognize gun experience when she sees it.

She freezes when she sees the gun, and her eyes flick to his face. He tries to make himself seem as intimidating as possible; if she sees his panic, she’ll take advantage of it.

“Put that down, kid,” she says. She’s standing straight, fists clenched at her sides. “You’re gonna hurt yourself if you’re not careful.”

“Shut up,” he snaps, and without preamble, fires the gun. It’s a decent shot, but it's just wide enough that she can duck out of the way well before it reaches her, and Stiles hears the dull metallic  _ thud  _ of the rubber bullet hitting the door of a car. He aims down the sights and tries again. This time she steps out of the way before he can even press the trigger, and the bullet goes wide. It's only when she’s lit up by headlights that they both realize she’s stepped into the path of an oncoming car. Stiles pauses, watching as Rollins goes wide-eyed in panic and dives out of the way.

After that, it’s a storm of screeching horns and squealing tires. The first car swerves into the next lane to avoid her, which causes another car to swerve, until finally a minivan crashes into the cement median. A sedan crashes into its rear bumper, spinning until it’s lying across two lanes. More cars follow, running off the road to avoid the pile-up or, if they’re not fast enough, plowing into it at full speed.

A bright light hits Stiles in the peripheries of his vision. When he turns his head, gun still dangling from his fingertips, it’s to see the flat face of a yellow school bus bearing down on him without mercy, horn wailing. 

He falls on his ass and scrambles away. The bus passes him so close that he feels the wind brush the loose fabric of his pajama pants, and he thinks his heart might actually stop for a few seconds. Then he’s watching the bus crash into a tree, the momentum so strong that the back wheels actually rise a few inches into the air before slamming back into the grass.

It’s all over in about twenty seconds. Before Stiles can even get to his feet, he sees the rows of cars stopped down the highway, the ones that were lucky enough to brake before they reached the mess in front of him. The unlucky cars are jumbles of crunched metal and billowing smoke. He sees one or two small fires underneath hoods, and people are already trying to free themselves from their wedged seat belts so they can stumble away from the danger. There’s blood, there are tears, and he hears a couple of people screaming. A baby cries somewhere far away, and Stiles hopes it’s in one of the cars stalled a few yards away, not one of the cars crumpled like trash.

A man falls out of a broken driver’s side door, coughing and wheezing. There’s blood slowly oozing down his face from cuts on his cheeks. Stiles watches, paralyzed, as the man pulls out a cell phone with trembling hands and punches in a few numbers. He puts it to his ear.

“Hello? 9-1-1?”

EMTs. The fire department. Cops.

Rollins.

Stiles blinks and looks around, his fingers tightening around the gun. It’s still hard to see, despite the glow of fires and headlights, but he can’t see her anywhere. He checks her car, looks around at all the other cars, examines each and every person milling around in a daze. None of them are Rollins.

She must have taken off. It’s not surprising, when Stiles thinks about it. She was doing something illegal, and in the process caused a massive pile-up on a highway.She can’t move her own car with this pile-up in the way, and she can’t expect to get a resistant teenage prisoner all the way to the nearest police station on foot, not when he’s too heavy for her carry. It makes sense that she’d rather run off and leave her task unfinished then risk losing her job or getting arrested herself. But that means she left all these people behind. People who need help because of what she did.

He should stay. He should help where she wouldn’t. He’s at least partially responsible for this, right? He and Rollins were fighting, and that caused all of this to happen.

It’s what his dad would do. His dad would stay and help clean up the mess he created, and he’d be disappointed in Stiles for not doing the same.

No, it’s worse. Sheriff Stilinski would never have found himself in this position in the first place, and he’d be devastated to find out that Stiles  _ has _ . It’s one thing for him to find out Stiles is acting out at school, or got a speeding ticket, or got caught putting thumbtacks on Coach’s office chair, but this....

Stiles has never been one for selfless giving, though. Not to strangers, at least. And this would be a completely selfless act. If he stays behind, he’ll most likely be brought in for questioning, maybe even arrested for his role in the pile-up. And once they find out that he’s technically an unwind, it’s over. He’ll be sent off to camp again, except this time it’ll be sanctioned and legal, and there won’t be a possibility of escape.

So he does the only thing he can do. The only thing he can make himself do.

He turns away disappears into the dark night air.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More car crashes. Be warned.

Scott is on a school bus. He’s surrounded by hormonal, angry teenagers and adults who find them distasteful. He’s hungry, he’s thirsty, and he’s had to pee for about half an hour. He does not want to be here.

It could be a scene from any morning during the years he lived with his mom, when he actually went to regular public school, when he spent mornings with his tattered backpack in his lap and his head ducked low to avoid spitballs. 

There are a few key differences, though. Instead of teachers with bullhorns, they’re being watched by juvey cops with tranq guns. They aren’t allowed to open the windows, since it presents a flight risk. And most importantly, they aren’t kids being shunted off to school; they’re kids being shunted off to a harvest camp. 

The details make all the difference.

There’s no backpack in his lap, but Scott still ducks his head. There’s a group of boys a couple seats behind him, and from the sounds of it, they’re getting ready to raise hell. Whether that means targeting the cops up front or just tormenting whoever they can get their hands on, Scott has no idea, but he doesn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

It’s almost midnight, and he’s been awake since early in the morning, but sleep doesn’t feel like an option. Sleep would mean leaving himself vulnerable to anyone on this bus, and it would also mean sacrificing some of the last few moments he has as an individual in the outside world. Right now that world may consist only of a dilapidated California highway and the flat green fields surrounding it, but if it’s the best he’s going to get, he’s going to enjoy it. It may be one of the last things he gets to see while his eyes are still in his own head. At least the sunset is pretty.

“This is  _ bullshit _ .” It’s one of the guys in the back, shouting it just loud enough to earn a scowl from the juvey cops up front. “Absolute  _ horse cock _ , you hear me? I didn’t spend ten years training for a lacrosse scholarship just to have some low-wage mall cops take me to a chop shop. I worked hard for this body, why the hell does someone else get it? I don’t deserve this.”

_ No one does _ , Scott thinks. The boys would be inspiring if they weren’t so self-centered, focusing only on their own plight and making no effort to unite the kids around them. It’s annoying, and depressing, but Scott doesn’t want to say anything. He got a glance at them when he sat down, and they’re all substantially bigger than him. Taller, bulkier, wider. They could do serious damage before the cops had a chance to get back here and stop them. Scott does the practical thing and keeps his mouth shut.

The same can’t be said for his seatmate.

The kid looks younger than Scott, only fourteen or fifteen. He’s also shorter, and while he has a bit of muscle on him, it’s wiry at best. He’s built for speed and agility, and that’s worth jack shit in enclosed spaces like this. He wouldn’t last ten seconds going up against those hulks.

He doesn’t seem to care, though. His breathing has been getting steadily heavier and shorter, until it turns into short huffs of breath out of his nostrils. If he was a cartoon, smoke would be blowing out of his nose and his ears, and his skin would be turning bright red.

When Scott glances at him, he sees the boy clutching at his thighs, fingers clawing at the fabric of his jeans until they’re white-knuckled. The interior lights cast dark shadows under his eyes, and his nose is scrunched up with rage. He looks about ten seconds away from exploding. Or worse, confronting the boys in the back.

“Hey,” he whispers, and the kid glances at him. “Don’t let them bother you. They’re just a bunch of assholes.”

“Yeah, well, they’re pissing me off.” The words are spit through gritted teeth, and the look he shoots at Scott is anything but friendly. “Now shut up, I didn’t ask for your advice.”

Scott has seen this type before. The state ward is full of them, angry and lonely teenage boys abandoned by anyone they’ve ever loved and left to fend for themselves. Some people react to the stress with tears, some react by shutting down, and others simmer at a low heat until a spark finds its way to their fuse. It’d be impossible to diffuse this kid’s rage, because he doesn’t know how to feel anything else. The only thing to do is distract him.

“What’s your name?” he asks. He’s still whispering, but he leans in closer to catch the boy’s attention before it can refocus on the loudmouths.

The kid doesn’t even look at him this time, craning his neck to peer at the idiots still blabbering on about lacrosse. “Liam.”

“I’m Scott.”

No response. Scott is starting to get nervous. He can practically smell the aggression oozing out of Liam’s pores, and it can only lead to disaster. If he can’t get the boy to think about anything else besides those losers, then maybe he can take advantage of that.

“Do you know those guys? You seem really angry.”

Huffing with irritation, Liam turns back to him. “Why do you care?”

Scott frowns, trying to think of a response that will get the kid talking. It doesn’t matter what he says, as long as it postpones his meltdown. He settles on a variation of the truth. “Because they bother me, too, but you look like you’re about to blow a gasket. If I get caught in the crossfire, I’d at least like to know why.”

Liam chews his bottom lip for a second, then rolls his eyes. “Fine, I know them. We went to Devenford Prep together and played on the same lacrosse team. They didn’t like it when a freshman beat their asses on the first day of practice, so they broke into my locker and busted all my equipment.” For the first time, Liam looks slightly uncomfortable, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching in his seat. “I may have taken a baseball bat to their cars after that. Mechanic said it was thousands of dollars worth of damage.”

Scott whistles softly.  _ No wonder this kid is being unwound _ .

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he freezes. He’s not sure whose voice it was in his head, his counselor or the juvey cops or any of the countless teachers he’s had over the years, but it doesn’t really matter. It makes him feel sick to his stomach. He’s sitting on a bus heading towards his end, and he’s still thinking like one of  _ them _ . One of the lazy, impatient adults who would rather divide a child into usable parts then spend the time or money to make them whole. How could he be so callous? How could he be so  _ mean _ ?

Scott squares his shoulders. He needs to be better than that. He was raised to be better than that.

“Is that why you’re being unwound?” he asks.

Liam looks at him sharply, and for a second, Scott thinks he’s blown it. To say it’s a sensitive topic would be the understatement of the year, but Scott puts faith in the idea that it should bring them together. They’re on the same bus heading to the same fate, right? Why shouldn’t they be able to talk about it? Put their heads together and deal with it, even if that just means trying to melt down some of the titanium fear lodged in their chests?

The tension only lasts a second. Liam doesn’t soften so much as he deflates, slumping down even further as if to hide from his thoughts. His teeth are grit in an angry pout. “Yeah. Three strikes and you’re chopped.”

“Liam,” Scott starts, his voice soft, but the kid interrupts him before he can continue.

“Piss off,” he snaps. “I don’t need your pity, alright? I can handle being on my own just fine.” He sits up a little, voice rising and finger jabbing in Scott’s direction. “Besides, you’re just as doomed as I am. Stick to your own tragedy and leave mine alone.”

Liam’s aggression makes him want to turn away and forget about this whole conversation, but that’s what  _ they  _ did. To him, to Liam, to every kid who was shipped off like cargo to be disassembled somewhere else. They ignored them all because it was easier.

He keeps his voice as soothing as possible, his expression calm and open. “You don’t have to be alone, though.” Liam looks at him like he’s crazy, but Scott doesn’t care. He’s too busy channeling every ounce of conviction he has. “If no one else is going to be here for us, then we’ll just have to be here for each other. For as long as we can be.”

“You don’t even know me,” Liam says, snorting dismissively.

“Does it matter, at this point?” Scott asks.

Liam shrugs and crosses his arms again, turning away from Scott to stare out the window across the aisle.

Scott opens his mouth to try again, but he never gets the chance. A huge hand slams down on the back of their seat, and warm breath ghosts over the back of his head.

“Look, guys, it’s the runt.”

Scott turns around, his eyes flicking from the long fingers clutching the seat to the face they belong to. It’s one of the assholes, a guy with large ears and over-fluffed brown hair. He’s crouching in the seat behind them to avoid being seen by the cops up front, almost crushing the poor kid actually sitting there. His teeth are bared in a shark’s smile.

And he’s staring straight at Liam.

Liam, who turns around as soon as he hears the kid speak, jaw clenched and fingers curled into fists. Liam, who was on the brink of violence  _ before _ they noticed him, and who looks even more livid now that he’s being confronted.

This can’t end well.

“Brett.” Liam spits the name through gritted teeth.

“What’d they get you for?” Brett asks. He moves his hand so he can cross his arms and lean over the back of the seat, his posture soft and relaxed. The look in his eyes is anything but gentle; he looks ready to pounce.

“None of your damn business,” Liam snaps.

“Was it Coach’s car?” Brett continues. “Or was it mine? Or the headmaster’s? Gosh, you sure had a thing for destruction of property, didn’t you?”

Liam just stares at him, exhaling heavily through his nose. Scott recognizes a breathing exercise he learned from his mom, designed to reduce stress and anxiety, but it doesn’t seem to be doing jack shit for Liam.

Brett leans in conspiratorially. “But what else do you expect from a runt with anger problems? When you’re fucking  _ crazy _ like you are, you gotta expect you’re just going to ruin the life of everyone you come into contact with--”

“Shut up.”

“Like some fucking  _ plague _ , just  _ infecting _ everything with drama and hospital visits--”

“I said  _ shut up _ .”

“I bet your stepdad has a lot of regrets. I mean, sure, your mom’s hot, but is she really worth your insane levels of--”

Liam roars, twisting around so he can shove Brett in the shoulder, hard enough that he flies back into the kid he’s sitting on top of. After that, it’s a flurry of movement as they both stand up in the aisle of the bus, chest to chest and tensed for a fight. Brett’s friends stand up, too, moving forward to back their leader. The kids around them just look on, wide-eyed and excited by the action.

Scott swears under his breath. Before he can think better of it, he slides across the seat and stands up in the narrow space separating Liam and Brett, pushing them apart as best he can.

“Guys, is this really the time?” he asks desperately.

Brett huffs. “If it’s my last chance to beat the snot out of this kid before he’s ripped apart, then--”

“Don’t forget you’re getting unwound, too, asswipe,” Liam snipes. They both drift forward a bit, and Scott has to push against their chests again to get them to separate.

“Hey, what’s going on back there?”

Scott cranes his head to look behind Liam. One of the juvey cops is standing up, tranq gun in hand, but he hasn’t started moving towards them yet. There’s still time to save this.

“Nothing!” he shouts as innocently as he can. He turns back to the two boys. “Unless you guys want to spend the rest of the ride unconscious, you should probably sit your asses down.”

Brett narrows his eyes. He grunts in annoyance but turns away all the same, slipping past one of his guys to reclaim his seat at the back. Liam, on the other hand, takes a step forward, almost bowling over Scott as he lunges towards Brett’s retreating back.

“Hey, stop!” Scott manages to keep from falling over by grabbing the seats on either side of him, blocking Liam’s path. Once he’s not in danger of being trampled, he puts a hand on Liam’s shoulder and nudges him back towards their seat. All he wants is to sit them both down and continue gazing out at the gathering night, maybe catch a glimpse of a few stars before they’re lost to him forever.

But the younger boy resists, shoving Scott’s hand off his shoulder and straightening up until they’re nose to nose. “Back off, Scott,” he says, words filled with venom.

“None of us have a lot of time left,” Scott blurts out. He immediately winces; the words feel too final, like saying them out loud is what makes them true. But he has a point to make, so he doesn’t dwell on it. Making sure to look Liam in the eye and keep his voice modulated, he continues. “Don’t waste what’s left of yours on him. You’re worth more than that.”

It seems to work. This time, when Scott puts his hand on Liam’s shoulder to guide him towards their seat, he doesn’t push back. He doesn’t glare, doesn’t snort, doesn’t send one foul word in Scott’s direction, and for one blissful second, Scott thinks he’s pulled it off. Disaster averted. Crisis contained. Maybe now he can get some peace.

Then Liam glances back at him, over his shoulder, and his eyes widen. “Scott, look out!”

Scott whirls around just in time to see a fist flying straight towards his face, one of Brett’s friends grimacing on the other end of it. He squeezes his eyes shut to brace for the impact.

It never comes.

The world tilts and begins to shake violently. Scott’s feet slip out from under him and he tumbles backward, wincing when his skull cracks against the floor. The guy who was about to punch him falls down, too, landing on Scott with the full weight of his body and knocking the air from his lungs. He tries to shove the kid off, but he’s heavy and struggling, and he only has time to get his hands underneath the guy’s chest before the bus crashes, filling the air with the sound of breaking glass, wailing horns, and the earthquake thump of something heavy falling to the ground outside.

Scott’s momentum slides him toward the front of the bus, his shoulders scraping against the dirty metal floor. Kids are starting to panic, some of them screaming in pain, others shouting as they try to escape. Before Scott can even think about getting up, the kid on top of him pushes him back down as he scrambles to his feet, crawling over Scott in order to escape. After that comes the stampede, dozens of feet are trampling over his aching body as the teens make for the door. Heels come down on his ribcage, toes stamp on his fingers, shoes of all sizes and shapes leaving bruises on every inch of exposed skin. He manages to get his arms in front of his face to block the worst of the damage, but then it’s just a matter of riding it out, wincing at every impact. He tries not to pass out from the pain, or think about how difficult it is to pull air into his lungs. He tries not to let claustrophobia sink in.

The final kid passes by, his shoe scraping Scott’s temple. Scott struggles into a sitting position, pain erupting in places he didn’t even know existed. Using the seat as a crutch, he pushes himself to his feet. This gets him high enough to glance out of one of the windows, and as soon as he does, he freezes.

Outside, it’s chaos. The highway is backed up for nearly half a mile, headlights creating a flurry of yellow glow as the drivers honk their thunderous horns. But the more pressing issue, the one that makes bile rise in Scott’s throat, is the massive pile-up in the middle of the highway. At least a dozen cars are mangled beyond recognition. Some are belching out clouds of dark smoke, others have flames flickering inside them. Some are even flipped upside down or on their sides, wheels spinning slowly in mid-air. People have started to tumble out of them, bloody and dazed, but the unlucky ones are still caught inside. Scott sees one woman struggling against her seatbelt, crying and banging on the closed window.

_ How the hell did this happen? _

Someone coughs violently, and it takes Scott a second to realize it didn’t come from outside. Alarmed, he glances all around, not spotting anything until he looks toward the very back of the bus. A foot is sticking out from behind the last seat, and when the next round of coughing starts, he can see it twitching with the movements.

“Hello?” Scott takes a step toward the noise.

More violent coughing. This time it sounds too wet and bubbly to be anything but bad news. He thinks he hears the word “help” hidden somewhere in there, but it’s nearly indecipherable. He takes a few more steps forward.  

It’s one of Brett’s friends, one of the loudmouthed, athletic bullies that thought he was above being unwound, that he was invincible and couldn’t be touched.

He certainly isn’t invincible now. He’s lying on his back, one of his legs bent at a horrifying angle, and his hands are clutching something that’s embedded in his stomach. A nasty wound on his temple is leaking blood down the side of his head, sluicing through his hair and onto the floor beneath him. The coughs are struggling to escape his throat around the blood he’s choking on, making each noise wet and painful.

Scott kneels down next to him. His heart lurches when he sees the boy is crying, tears rolling down his face and mixing with his blood.

“Hey,” he says as soothingly as he can. He puts his hands on top of the other boy’s to keep him from trying to pull the object out of his stomach. “You need to keep that in, okay? It’s helping keep the blood inside.”

The kid lifts his head and nods before letting it thunk back onto the ground.

“What’s your name?” Scott asks, more for something to say than anything else. He’s running his eyes all along the boy’s body, trying to parse out just how bad his injuries are, but it’s difficult. He studies veterinary medicine, not human medicine, and anything he learned from his mom is long forgotten.

The boy coughs again before choking out a name.  _ Cody. _

“Hi, Cody. I’m Scott. You may know me from before, when you guys were about to beat up my friend Liam?” Scott smiles to show he’s kidding. It only lasts a second before slipping off his face.

Things don’t look good. If he’s guessing correctly, the boy has a fractured femur and a concussion, along with the rather obvious gaping hole in his stomach. He needs medical attention right away, but Scott doubts an ambulance will be able to get here in time. Not to mention that there are more people right outside this bus that need help, too. Who knows when the medics will have time for him?

Scott doesn’t know how to help. He knows how to deal with broken bones in animals, but this is different. This is a human being, with a possible head injury and massive bleeding.

Bleeding. That’s the first step; try and stop the bleeding.

Scott’s own clothes won’t work; they’re thick cotton, and he doesn’t have anything to cut them with. Same goes for Cody’s. He looks up at all the seats, desperate for anything, and cries out in relief when he spots a jacket abandoned on a nearby seat.

“Alright, Cody, we’re gonna work on fixing you up, okay? You’re gonna be just fine. Understand? You’ll be good as new in no time.” Scott balls up the jacket to press it over the wound on his stomach. It’s the first time he really gets a good look at the object buried in Cody’s bloodied skin, and he fumbles with the jacket in surprise.

“A knife?” he asks. “Who the hell got a knife on the bus? And how did they….”

Cody lets out another moist cough, a tiny spray of blood coating his lips. “Mine,” he chokes out.

Scott wilts. “Oh.” Cody must have fallen on it, he realizes. He must have been holding it when the bus crashed. He probably fell down or got thrown into a wall or something, and in the chaos he accidentally….

If he was holding it, he must have been thinking about using it. And considering what was going on before the crash between Brett and Liam and Scott, there’s no doubt in Scott’s mind who he was planning to use it on.

Ignoring the way his hands shake, he presses the jacket down on the wound, wrapping it around the knife to avoid pushing it in further. It’s not exactly a bandage, but he doesn’t want to risk removing the knife and making things worse, so he figures it’ll have to do until the paramedics get here. He does his best to ignore the rivulets of blood still leaking out from under the coat.

Next step, his head.

Scott has to limp a few seats up the aisle, but eventually he finds another abandoned jacket. He rolls it into a workable pillow and kneels down next to Cody again, lifting his head and placing the jacket underneath. He folds one corner up so he can dab at Cody’s temple, where the blood hasn’t slowed its progress. Head wounds normally bleed a lot, but this one looks particularly bad, and Scott is getting more and more worried about the possibility of a concussion.

How do you even deal with a concussion? That’s not something he’s ever dealt with, not with his mother or with any of his doctors or even Deaton. Can animals even get concussions? He’s never seen it. Then again, he’s not even an actual apprentice yet, so what does he know?

His breaths are starting to come faster and faster as they get more and more shallow. That straw feeling is back, the feeling of too little air coming too slow for him to breathe. He can’t fix the stab wound, he can’t fix the head injury, and he certainly can’t fix the broken leg. The bone didn’t break skin, thankfully, but that doesn’t mean it’s not causing serious damage inside the boy’s body. How long until the pain knocks him out?

Scott can’t do anything. He realizes it with a sick jolt through his gut, and once he does, he can’t get past it. He can’t do anything, he can’t help, he can’t fix this, he can’t keep this boy from--

“Cody?” he stutters. The other boy’s eyes are still open, but only barely, and his breaths are jagged and slow. “Cody,” Scott says again, louder.

No response.

“You have to stay awake, okay? You can’t fall asleep. Help is on the way, they’ll be able to help you, but you have to stay awake until they get here, alright?”

No response.

Scott shakes him, his brain clouding with panic. His own breaths are sounding ragged, too, and he can feel an asthma attack coming on. With trembling fingers, he reaches into his pocket and fumbles with the inhaler. He watches as Cody’s eyes slip closed. His bloodied head falls to the side as his entire body goes limp, hands slipping off his stomach and onto the floor.

The inhaler cap won’t come off. Scott wants to scream at Cody, wants to shout at him to wake up, open his eyes, anything, but he can’t get the words out. It feels like there’s no air in his lungs. Tears well up in his eyes.

Somehow he manages to get the cap off, and he puts the inhaler to his mouth and presses down. The medicine is soothing, and after a few quick puffs, he can feel his lungs returning to normal.

He can’t make himself care, though. As he was breathing life back into his own lungs, he watched it escape from Cody’s. Stupid and weak, he couldn’t do anything but stare as someone died right in front of him.

He wasn’t good enough.

He expects to feel even more pain in his chest, even more stress running along all the nerves in his body, but instead everything just feels numb. It’s like the asthma medicine invaded his whole body, filling it with cold smoke that froze every square inch of his insides. He can barely make himself stand up, let alone exit the empty bus, but that’s exactly what he does.  

It’s still chaos outside. The cops and paramedics haven’t shown up yet, and people are desperately trying to free the men and women still trapped inside their cars. Somehow, no one has noticed the crashed bus, or the boy stumbling off of it in threadbare hospital pajamas.

That’s a good thing for Scott. He knows he needs to leave quickly, or else he’ll be caught and thrown right back into custody. He’ll be taken to a harvest camp and split up into tiny usable parts, his hands and legs and spine and brain going to people who need them and can use them for good.

Or at least, who can use them better than Scott himself can. Maybe he really is better off in the divided state. He certainly doesn’t do any good as himself.

Too bad he’s not that selfless.

In the distance, Scott can see a subdivision of houses, some still under construction. It’s the closest bit of civilization he can find, besides the cars stalled on the highway, and he needs to get food, water, and better clothing if he ever wants to make it back home.

Because that’s where he’s going. The only place he can think to go, even if it’s where it all fell apart in the first place. It’s all he knows, all he’s ever known. He’s not clever enough, not tough enough or capable enough to survive on the run for long periods of time. If he’s going to survive, he needs help. And the only person who can help him right now, the only person he trusts, is Deaton. So Beacon Hills it is.

He starts walking.


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles should probably be ashamed. Mortified. At a minimum, he should be sheepish. That’s how people are supposed to feel when they’re breaking the law. Or at least, that’s what he’s always been told. And yet here he is, ass hanging out of an open window as he crawls inside someone else’s house to steal their food. And maybe clothes. Definitely their shoes. And he’s more concerned with the windowsill digging into his stomach and giving him splinters than he is with his moral integrity.

These are desperate times. So naturally, that calls for desperate measures. That’s how that works, right?

He sighs. The windowsill is not helping the giant bruise that is his body, but he can’t move yet. The window is placed right over a large oak desk, and there’s a computer monitor sitting right where he’s trying to slip inside. The last thing he wants to do is knock it over and break it. He may be a thief, as of right now, but he’s not a dick. Computers are expensive.

But that means he’s stuck here, legs dangling out where anyone could see them. There could be nosy neighbors eyeing him right now, ready to call the cops. He tries to make quick work of it, carefully picking up the monitor and moving it to the side, then shuffling the antique lamp off to the side as well. Finally, he takes a glass paperweight and shoves it into a cup full of fancy pens, and then pulls himself inside.

It does not go smoothly. The desk part is easy enough, his stomach sliding right over the polished wood, but after that he slams face-first into the ergonomic office chair. His momentum carries him forward, and suddenly he’s got a face full of white carpet, the chair toppled over on his back. It makes an ungodly amount of noise, part of which was his own muffled scream, but he’s not too worried. He watched the old couple leave in the only car that was parked in the garage, and the house is completely dark. It’s doubtful that anyone is here.

Still, he tiptoes through the house. The air is deadly quiet, like the walls are holding their breath, waiting to see what he’s going to do. There isn’t even the hum of an air conditioner or the creak of the foundation settling. The only sound is the distant honking of horns from the highway, the residue of the accident. He hates it.

He used to like the idea of being completely by himself, away from all of his mother’s erratic behavior and the shitty kids at school. He thought it would be liberating. If no one knew where he was, he wouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do or be anyone he didn’t feel like being. If he chose to be alone, it wouldn’t be sad anymore because it would be a  _ choice _ .

It turns out none of that is true. It’s not liberating, it’s creepy. It’s terrifying. It makes him feel like a ghost, invisible and wandering around in meaningless circles. He wants to get out of here as fast as he can. He wants to be back at home with his dad. He wants someone to know where he is, because no one does right now, and it feels awful.

He finds the master bedroom easily enough, wrinkling his nose at the smell of dust and too much floral perfume. The room looks like a picture out of a home-making catalogue from thirty years ago, complete with yellowed doilies on the squat wooden dresser and heavy drapes adorning the window. It’s stifling and slightly claustrophobic, but Stiles only has eyes for the walk-in closet, practically drooling at the prospect of changing out of his ratty pajamas.

The closet smells even worse, like laundry detergent and ointment, but he starts sifting through the hangers anyway. The husband only gets part of one side, and as far as Stiles can tell, it’s all pastel polos and pressed slacks. It’s not exactly his look, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?

He hits the very last hanger, hidden against the walls behind an expensive-looking suit, and nearly tears the metal bar from the wall in his excitement. It’s a flannel shirt, red and black plaid, a classic, and folded alongside it is a pair of well-worn jeans. It must be a work outfit for the old man, or maybe just a souvenir from his younger days, but either way, Stiles has never been more grateful. He’s barely detached the clothes from their wire hanger before he’s stripping off his pajama pants and slipping into the sturdy denim. He keeps his t-shirt on underneath the flannel, buttoning it up all the way for warmth. They’re both a little big on him, but he doesn’t care. The last thing that matters to him right now is fashion.

He looks down at his feet and scrunches his bare toes into the carpet. He definitely needs shoes.

Those aren’t hard to find either. A quick peek up at the top shelf of the closet reveals an entire line of shoes, most of which look dusty and old. Most of them are useless and impractical, expensive loafers and strappy sandals, but towards the back is a pair of sturdy work boots. 

Stiles stands up on his toes and reaches as far as he can. The pair he’s looking at is sitting on top of a shoe box, the bottom of which is all he can reach. It’s a frustrating procedure he hasn’t had to take part in since he hit his growth spurt and shot up six inches. He tugs the box along by pinching at the corner, trying desperately not to push it even farther away. If he could just reach a little higher….grab it by a rip in the cardboard…..

He pulls too hard. The box flies off the shelf, the lid opening and spilling tons of paper on top of his head. The boots come next, their heels bouncing off his skull and hitting the carpet with a soft thud.

“Fuck,” he mutters, rubbing his head and kneeling down to start shoving papers back into the box. They look like official documents and keepsakes, birth certificates and social security cards and passports and those little bracelets they put on a baby when it’s first born. Important stuff. Intimate stuff. And while Stiles doesn’t feel too bad about stealing clothing and shoes, he feels absolutely  _ skeezy _ looking through personal effects like this. So he decides  _ not _ to look, blurring his vision so that none of the words or images come into focus. Not that it changes the fact that he  _ broke into their house _ , but still. He has standards.

He picks up the last piece of paper, and something in him freezes. Even deliberately cross-eyed and half-blind, he recognizes the pink paper and the smudged gray lettering, remembers seeing it clutched in his mother’s hand, her fingers tightening until it crumpled. It’s a copy of an unwind order. The parents’ copy. To keep for record purposes.

Suddenly, Stiles doesn’t care about boundaries. He picks up the box, dumps it contents onto the floor again, and starts sifting. It’s weird, like sorting through artifacts at an archeological dig and trying to use the dusty old relics to piece together someone’s life. He’s always been good at puzzles, though, and it doesn’t take long for him to make a timeline. He finds the infant bracelet, with the name, size, and date of birth written in tiny lettering. He finds the matching birth certificate. Report cards, a few childish paintings, a handmade Mother’s Day card. A picture of two smiling adults with a bright happy baby held in their arms. And finally, that pink form.

Matthew. That was their son’s name.

The most recent report cards are from a high school, dated almost ten years ago, same as the unwind slip. Meaningless, generic phrases are repeated over and over again in different handwriting, with different colored pens:  _ behavioral issues, poor academic performance, poor social skills _ . One teacher even wrote in slapdash cursive,  _ Might be better suited for a different path in life _ . Stiles has watched enough teachers try to bullshit their way through his own issues that he recognizes the code speak: this teacher is probably the one who planted the seed of unwinding in the parents’ heads. Maybe she didn’t mean to, maybe it didn’t cross her mind at all, but it almost certainly played a role.

This couple’s son became a problem child, and so they shipped him off to be someone else’s problem. They figured he’d be much easier to deal with in pieces than he would as himself. They gave up on him.

Stiles looks down at his hands and realizes they’re shaking. Not with anxiety, though, like they usually do. This isn’t a panic attack, or a side effect of his Adderall, or the result of too many energy drinks in too little time. This is just pure, unadulterated rage.

He hates these people. He doesn’t know them, has barely even seen them, but he hates them. For what they did to their son, for what they represent, for their complicitness in a system that’s trying to tear him apart.

It’s easy to ignore the contradictions. The way he himself was content with that system for the first sixteen years of his life. The fact that his dad is an authority figure that upholds the laws responsible for his situation. All of it seems secondary. The anger feels better, like a fire warming him up when he didn’t even know he was cold.

So he trashes the place. He starts with the closet, tearing all the clothes down off their hangers and throwing them out into the bedroom.

It’s just...it’s such  _ bullshit _ . Why do parents get to decide if their child lives whole or divided.

The attached master bath is pristine when he steps inside. Within seconds, shampoo and soap bottles are bursting against the tiled walls. He picks up the small bath rug and stuffs it in the toilet.

You can’t come back from being unwound. It’s an irrevocable decision. It’s not like cutting your child’s hair or making them play a sport. So why are parents allowed to make that decision for someone else?

He’s back out in the bedroom, knocking over lamps, overturning end tables, and tearing down picture frames. His fingers are bursting with energy, like all the frustration he’s been feeling for past two days is trying to leak out all at once. It feels impossible to stop, way too hard to control, so he doesn’t even try.

Why should he? Why should he control his violence when he’s about to become the victim of state-sanctioned violence? When he’s already got blood on his hands?

Because he does. There’s no other way he can think about the pile-up only a few miles from where he’s standing. No other way he can picture the smoking cars and bleeding people. He did that.  _ Him _ . All the polite B&E’s in the world couldn’t fix that. He could replace everything he’s stolen from this house, and he would still be no better than a drunk driver, hurting people because he’s too dumb to stop himself.

Stiles doesn’t get past the bedroom. His tank drains after too long and not long enough, his rage sputtering out until it’s running on fumes. He presses his back against a wall and slides down until he’s sitting, knees pulled to his chest. There’s too much going on inside his head, inside his chest, and not for the first time in his life, he just wants it to  _ stop _ .

He’d usually talk to his dad right about now. The Sheriff would put a hand on his shoulder, both comforting and awkward. He would squint in thought and say something that was maybe wise, maybe just lost, but that would always make Stiles feel more centered. And then Stiles would sit down at his laptop and binge-read Wikipedia articles, losing himself in a labyrinth of useless knowledge so he didn’t have to face the real world. But he can’t do that right now. The Sheriff is half a state away, and there isn’t a Wiki article in the world that could distract him from his issues.

Stiles has always thought of himself as a loner. He always assumed he was built to be a solitary creature, and that he did best on his own. It’s only now, when he’s lost at sea, that he realizes he’s never actually known true solitude.

Turns out, Stiles was wrong about a lot of things.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, forehead leaning against his knees, but eventually a sound breaks through his stupor: police sirens. It’s a familiar sound, one he used to fall asleep to when he was a baby strapped into a car seat, but this time it sends a jolt of panic through him.

The logical assumption would be that the police have finally arrived on scene. They’re at the crash, corralling witnesses and taking statements. What other reason would they have for being here?

Something doesn’t feel right, though. The sirens are louder than they should be, much louder than the horns that have been honking on and off since he got here. Why? Because they’re coming closer? Because they’re coming  _ here _ ? How could they have found him?

Stiles hates making decisions based on no information, but the thoughts in the back of his head are telling him to run. Hasn’t he always heard that when you’re in survival mode, it’s best to listen to your instincts?

The police end up making the decision for him. The master bedroom is situated right at the front of the house, and one of its windows faces the front yard. So when a car pulls into the driveway, the headlights illuminate Stiles’ face, making him blink in confusion. When the roar of the engine shuts off, and two car doors slam almost in unison, the noise carries up and through the window. He only has to stand up and glance outside to spot the blue and red plastic of the car sirens, distinct even in the dark of night.

Downstairs, the front door slams open. He can’t escape through the front door, or even the window he crawled through in the first place. If he goes down there, he’ll get caught. And if he stays here, he’ll get caught. The only option left is to leave here directly, without the first floor as a middle step.

He has years of experience sneaking out the house. On nights when his mom got mean, or when his dad was too tired to deal with him, he would climb out of his second story window, lowering himself down until the fall was only mildly painful. So this should be easy, right?

He can hear footsteps moving around downstairs, distant shouts of  _ Clear _ as they search the different rooms.

Stiles opens the bedroom window and tries to kick the screen out. He manages to dislodge it, but he loses his balance and falls on his ass.

The footsteps are on the stairs, now. He’s running out of time.

The roof of the front porch is directly below the window, and stepping out onto it is easy enough, even in the dark. But when he looks over the edge, the drop looks much farther than it ever did at his own house. This can’t be safe, can it? He could break something, like his leg or his foot. Or his neck. Maybe he should--

Behind him, the bedroom door slams opens.

Stiles jumps.


	10. Chapter 10

Of all the places he thought he’d end up, work was not one of them.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. He’s not at  _ his _ work, but he  _ is  _ in a veterinary clinic. And while the layout may be slightly different, it feels remarkably similar. The shiny cages, the metal examination tables, the x-ray boards, the bags of food tucked away in the storage room. It feels like being at a relative’s house; it’s familiar, but he doesn’t know his way around, can’t figure out how everything is organized.

It’s a stroke of luck, though. The office is closed at night, and most small town clinics don’t have high security. All Scott had to do was look for the spare key in places similar to where he keeps his own. Eventually he found it, lodged behind the leg of one of the dumpsters out back.

He’s lucky there was a veterinary clinic at all. Wandering around the subdivision, it wasn’t hard to figure out that it’s still in development. A lot of the houses are incomplete, their driveways still dirt or their foundations exposed to the open air. He’d considered breaking into someone’s house, but it scared him. What if they had alarm systems? Or a dog? What if they were home? So he kept limping along, his ankle protesting with every step, until he wandered onto the new development’s tentative main drag. There were only a couple of small, fledgling businesses, like book stores and craft stores and a little bistro with only two tables in the outside seating area. And then, at the end of the block, like a shining beacon of hope, was  _ Family Friends Animal Clinic _ .

Scott nearly cried with relief.

He’s already feeling better. Unwilling to risk turning the lights on and attracting attention, he fumbled around in the dark until he found bandages and disinfectant, and then he set about cleaning up any scrapes or cuts he could find. The process if familiar, even if performing it on a human is not. He’s used to disinfecting through layers and layers of thick winter hair, not bare skin, especially his own. But medicine is medicine, right?   


There’s a small break room, complete with a tiny counter top and the miniest of mini fridges. He feels bad stealing, but his stomach feels even worse, empty and angry as it is, so he scoops up a yogurt and finds a spoon inside one of the countertop drawers.

And then he sits. And he waits.

The idea was to sleep for a couple hours, or at least doze, but oblivion won’t come. He’s too keyed up. He keeps seeing the nurses and cops at the hospital, the cops on the bus. The kids, desperate and alone, barreling towards a terrifying unknown. Cody, bleeding to death right in front of him. Every time he closes his eyes, he relives another few seconds, so bright and clear it’s like headlights shining in his face.

All of that is just the tip of the iceberg, too. He can sense something waiting beneath it, biding its time until it can pull him down beneath the surface and swallow him whole. His own fate. What unwinding will be like. Whether or not he can justify fighting it.

They’re all thoughts that hold too much weight. He can’t deal with them, not now, not sitting in the dark, his breath loud like thunder in the dead quiet.

That dead quiet is the only reason he hears the sirens coming.

Once he does, he’s on his feet within seconds, heart racing. His feet move faster than his mind, and he nearly trips over one of the break room chairs on his way to the door. When he walks out into the examination room, the dim streetlights from outside the window reflect dully on the bars of the animal cages. The place is small and claustrophobic, and for one terrifying second, Scott can’t find the door to the back hallway. He pictures himself being caught here, blacking out and then waking up in the depths of a harvest camp. He doesn’t even know what they’re like. He’s seen brochures, but they can’t be trusted. There are brochures about his state home, too, and he knows for a fact that everything they say is a lie.

He finds the door and races through it. He only has two options: the front door or the back alley. The front door seems dangerous. It’s by streetlamps, it’s out in the open, and he would definitely call attention to himself if anyone were to see. But what if they have the back door surrounded? What if they’re waiting for him?

Scott pauses, hand on the door to the back alley. He takes a deep breath, then another, ignoring the way the air scrapes roughly through his lungs. 

He twists the handle and pulls the door open. And then he runs.

He’s only about three steps out into the middle of the alley when something barrels into him, slamming him into the pavement. He winces as his back digs into a few loose rocks, his ribs protesting against the weight on top of him.

“Fuck.” The voice cracks over the single syllable, and Scott feels a hot breath on his cheek as the person on top of him flounders. “Fuck, fuck, what the fuck….”

It’s like the bus all over again, except this time there’s only one person clambering all over Scott’s body. They make up for being the only one by trying extra hard, though, digging elbows and fingers into Scott’s softest parts as they scramble to their feet. Scott isn’t far behind, stumbling to the side slightly to get as far away as possible.

Even in the dark, it’s easy to tell that the boy in front of him is exactly that -- a boy, no older than Scott himself. He’s tall and pale, his skin reflecting what little light there is while his dark eyes and hair disappear into the shadows. He’s dressed in a flannel that’s clearly too big for him, hanging around his wiry frame like canvas.

Scott can only stare, too surprised to move. He has questions, and a lot of them, but they’re all too loud to make sense of.

Then his mind reboots. The sirens are getting closer, and when he looks down at the end of the alley, he thinks he can see dim blue and red lights reflecting off of the nearby buildings.

The other kid must see it, too, because he swears under his breath and looks around desperately.

Scott blinks. It’s another split-second realization, just like with Isaac from the hospital. He looks at the kid, hears his harsh breaths, remembers the way he was tearing down the alley like a bat out of hell, and he puts together a picture he can only hope is right. He doesn’t know why he’s so sure, but he is: this kid is AWOL, too. From the bus, from one of the houses lining the unfinished streets, it doesn’t matter. These days, why else would a teenager be running as if their life depended on it?

He makes another split-second decision, too. He didn’t know Isaac, didn’t know if he was a good person or if he could be trusted, but he did what he thought was right. He didn’t know Liam very well, and everything he  _ did _ know was not promising in the slightest, but he did what he thought was right.

And now, with this new kid whose face Scott hasn’t even seen in full detail, he wants to do what he thinks is right.

He can tell the boy is about to take off again, so he darts forward and fumbles around until he has a grip on the kid’s upper arm. His arm nearly comes out of its socket, but he manages to pull the boy back towards the clinic door. “Wait,” he whispers. “I have a place we can hide, just hold on.”

“Fuck off,” the boy snarls. He tries to yank his arm away, but Scott holds firm.

“Please.” Scott backs up another step, leaning down to search for the spare key. The clinic door closed on him, and it locks automatically. He has to somehow get the key and unlock it again, while keeping this kid from running away and getting himself caught.

“That door is locked, dumbass,” the kid grunts, pulling away again. This time he’s stronger than Scott, and he gets away clean.

“I have a key,” Scott counters, turning so he can crouch down and find it. He picks it up and turns around again, holding it up as evidence. “Just trust me, okay? We can hide in there until they’re gone.”

He doesn’t see the guy, and for a second he thinks he’s gone. Then he sees that the boy has just melted into the shadows by the door. Three precious seconds tick by in silence. Scott can practically feel the distrust and hesitation, but the sirens have only gotten louder. Now they can hear the crunch of wheels on pavement as the car prowls closer and closer.

“Get on with it, then.”

Scott jabs the key into the lock, huffing in relief when it goes in smoothly. Then it’s just a matter of twisting it, opening the door, reaching over and shoving the boy inside--

The door closes, and the sirens become just dim background noise. Standing in the dark hallway, the two boys hold their breath, only releasing them when the sirens fade out into nothing.

They’re safe. For now.

Scott turns in the general direction of the other kid. It’s still too dark to see, but he at least wants to touch base, maybe learn the boy’s name. They’re in this together, at least for the time being.

Before he can so much as say hello, the kid is barreling into him again, this time on purpose. Scott cringes when his head thunks into the wall behind him. A thick, flannel-covered arm pushes at his neck, and his eyes widen in shock.

“What the hell are you--”

The arm presses harder, and Scott trails off with a gasp. It’s getting harder and harder to squeeze air into his lungs. It feels like an asthma attack, but with a lot more bruising. And fear.

“Listen,” the boy says, his voice tight and hard. “I don’t know who you are, I don’t know why you helped me, but I want to get one thing straight. If you try to attack me, I will fight back, and you will not walk away in one piece. If you try to turn me in, I will drag you down with me, and I’ll be there to watch as they wheel you into the Chop Shop. I have had the shittiest of shitty days, and I am in no mood for any fuckery, so keep your hands and business to yourself, understand?”

There’s no way this kid isn’t an unwind. The fear is thick and heavy in the way he’s speaking, even underneath the bravado. He also smells like anxiety sweat, and his entire body is tensed up in a way that suggests he’s stuck in fight-or-flight. Scott has been threatened and bullied enough times in his life to know when someone doesn’t have it in them, and this kid doesn’t scream violence. But he also knows desperation, remembers feeling it in the air while riding on that damn bus, and he doesn’t want to risk poking the bear.

“I’m Scott,” he manages to choke out.

The kid just drops him and walks further into the clinic, leaving Scott gasping on the dirty tile floor.


	11. Chapter 11

They’ve been sitting in silence for a while now. Stiles would normally do something about that, rambling on about some useless trivia or making jokes until the other person got bored, but he just doesn’t have it in him today. So they sit in the quiet, practically blending in with the office furniture.

Not that this boy would want to talk to Stiles anyway. Not after Stiles thanked him for saving his life by slamming him up against a wall and threatening him. He’s not sure what came over him. It could be his nerves, strung tighter than a violin, singing out exhaustion and fear like it’s all he’s ever known. It could be his paranoia leaking through, exaggerated by the fucking ridiculous action movie his life has become. Or maybe it’s just Stiles letting his freak flag fly, all his baggage from years of schoolyard shit rearing its ugly head at the first sign of another adolescent.

It’s just that there are all these  _ memories _ . He remembers Jackson pretending to be his friend and drawing on the wall with markers in the first grade, only to tattle and blame it all on him by recess. He remembers leaving a valentine on Lydia’s desk in third grade, earnest and hopeful and written with blunt crayons, and watching as she and her grade-school clique laughed over it. He remembers coming to school with his Batman lunchbox, proud as sin, and then crying when it was stolen and broken in half.

Not that he  _ never  _ had friends. There was Heather, his best friend from when he was a toddler. There was Harley, for a while. Even Greenberg, before he got his head stuck up his own ass. It’s not that Stiles is  _ incapable _ of making friends his own age. He’s just….had historically bad luck. Everyone either turned out to be an asshole or slowly drifted away.

It wasn’t until he got to high school that Stiles realized he had grown complacent. He thought the conversations and quasi-friendships he struck up with his dad’s coworkers meant he was socially competent, but in reality, he had lost touch with how to make friends with teenagers. Now, he just doesn’t ever bother with it. Finds it annoying. Hard work for little pay-off. Teenagers are a necessary evil. That’s it.

And now he’s stuck in hiding with one. His life depends on a teenage boy’s ability to keep his goddamn mouth shut.

He’s not optimistic.

It doesn’t help that the boy looks like the definition of naive. Dark eyes wide like the moon. The nervous, tentative smile he keeps sending Stiles’ way, despite receiving nothing in return. Floppy, skater-boy hair and a crooked jaw. For god’s sake, he’s wearing _ pajamas _ (which Stiles can judge him for, now that  _ he  _ is no longer wearing pajamas).

In a word, the boy looks  _ soft _ , and that’s the opposite of what Stiles needs right now. Stiles himself is probably too soft; he doesn’t need someone that’s  _ also _ in over their head dragging him down in their undertow.

The kid --  _ Scott _ , a disgustingly wholesome name if Stiles has ever heard one -- doesn’t seem to get that there won’t be any blossoming friendships in this garden. Stiles can almost hear him working up to a conversation. The sharp intakes of breath, like he’s about to say something but decided against it. The short, frustrated huffs when he chickens out. The tongue clicking that shows he’s bored, or maybe thinking. He’s so easy to read, even in the dim light of the office lamp Scott dragged inside the break room.

To entertain himself, Stiles tries to predict what (if anything) Scott will eventually say. Will he ask for Stiles’ name? Will he ask the ubiquitous question between criminals:  _ What are you in for? _ Or will he just segue right into his own story, having finally found a captive audience?

What  _ is _ his story? He’s probably an unwind, since most teenage runaways are. He looks way too baby-faced to be a criminal, but looks can be deceiving. Maybe he’s got a mean, violent side that leaked out one too many times. Maybe he’s a good kid with an abusive dad who got shafted by the law for standing up to his old man. Maybe he shoplifted something just a bit too expensive. Shit can get upgraded to grand larceny if it’s valuable enough.

“Want some yogurt?”

Stiles almost doesn’t hear him. The words are so innocuous, so nonsensical, that his brain tries to step all over them like loose gravel. “What?” he asks, breaking his own no-talking rule.

“Yogurt,” Scott repeats amiably. “There’s some yogurt in here.” The room is filled with more soft yellow light as he tugs open the refrigerator door. Stiles hears him rustle around inside and leans in close, curious despite himself.

He pulls out two yogurts. Stiles doesn’t know what else he was expecting.

It’s only when Scott raises an eyebrow and waves one of the cups at his face that Stiles realizes he hasn’t actually answered. He entertains the idea of refusing -- can’t have Scott thinking Stiles  _ owes  _ him -- but dismisses it. He hasn’t eaten in like two days; his stomach is practically digesting itself.

Scott scoots over a few feet so they’re sitting next to each other and hands Stiles one of the yogurts. “There was only one spoon, and I already used it. Sorry.”

Stiles shrugs, shifting away as subtly as he can. Just because he’s decided to accept this kid’s stolen food, doesn’t mean they’re buddies now.

Why  _ would _ Scott share, though? Stiles’ first instinct would have been to hoard it. Who knows when he’ll get food again? Why would he share his limited resources? But this chump offered it to him. Freely.

Stiles stares at the yogurt (blueberry) and shrugs, tearing off the foil wrapping. Rather than use his fingers, he opts for just sticking his tongue inside and lapping it up that way. He absolutely does  _ not _ blush when Scott snorts in amusement.

They eat in silence, the room filled only with the soft scrape of Scott’s spoon inside his plastic cup. It’s nice, and Stiles starts hoping it’ll stay that way. He’s looking forward to a few hours of rest, gathering his strength for the trek to Beacon Hills. As it turns out, jumping off of a porch roof is murder on the body. He managed to roll his body on impact and avoid any major breaks, but he felt the impact jar him all the way to his marrow, and his body feels like one giant bruise. Add that to the aches and pain he got from being carted around in the trunk of a car like a bag of road salt, and he could really use a break. Stiles tosses his empty cup at the trash can across the room before sitting back against the wall, ready to lose himself in the quiet.

Scott, however, has other plans. “So where are you from?”

Stiles opens one eye and glances at him incredulously. “Are you serious?”

The boy nods, frowning uncertainly. “I mean….yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because this isn’t a blind date, asshole. We’re fugitives running from the law. You don’t care where I’m from, and I don’t care where you’re from; therefore, we don’t need to make small talk about it. Actually, we don’t need to talk at all.”

“That makes us sound so badass,” Scott says mildly, crossing his legs and leaning back against the wall. “‘Fugitives running from the law’ sounds a lot better than….” He trails off, and when Stiles peers over at him, he sees Scott wrinkling his brow with discomfort.

Being an unwind is clearly a sensitive subject for this kid. Hell, it is for every unwind. Stiles himself doesn’t really want to talk about it, ever.

That doesn’t change the fact that Stiles is, was, and will always be a contrary asshole.Taking uncomfortable topics and poking them with a stick until the hornets come flying out is his specialty, and he does it with gusto. Nothing dissuades him, not getting called to the principal’s office (again), not getting a big fat D on his circumcision paper. The meek and polite don’t make history, right?

“Better than what?” he sneers. “A walking organ bank? A goodie bag of biological treasures? A reverse jigsaw puzzle?”

Scott looks up at him, more solemn than any teenager has a right to be. His knees are drawn up to his chest now, his arms gripping them tight, making him look smaller than he is. “An unwind,” he says softly.

Stiles grits his teeth. That’s the drawback to pushing people’s buttons; they don’t always react the way he expects them to. Sometimes his nuclear words slide right off of them, and he’s left stewing alone in his own radiation. “Yeah, well, we  _ are _ unwinds, and there’s paperwork to prove it,” he snaps. “So maybe you should just get over it.”

“Have you?”

The question hangs heavy in the air, but Stiles doesn’t bother answering. The fact that he’s here, sitting in a dark veterinary clinic with stolen clothes, proves he hasn’t accepted jack shit. And Scott knows that. Maybe he’s smarter than he looks. 

Stiles glances over at him, considering. He doesn’t look threatening at all, just a round-faced boy with a face built for smiling, but he’s here just the same as Stiles. Whatever his story is, whatever he’s done, he made it out alive, looking beaten to hell but strong enough to fight. That means something, and whatever it is, Stiles respects it.

And he’s just so  _ tired _ . He wants to sleep, preferably for a very long time.

Trust is still a long way off, but maybe he can make a few concessions.

“I’ll take first watch,” he mutters, ignoring the surprise on Scott’s face. “I’ll wake you up in a couple hours so you can take over.”

It’s only when Scott is lying down on his side, arm pillowed underneath his head and eyes drifting closed, that Stiles can make himself say the rest.

“I’m Stiles, by the way.”


	12. Chapter 12

Scott has second watch, which is probably a good thing. The sign says the clinic opens at eleven in the morning on Sundays, but Scott knows better; the vet usually has to get to work hours before the clinic opens just to run through his morning routines. If they want to leave here without getting caught, they need to be out the door by eight at the latest, and it’s very possible that Stiles doesn’t know that.

Stiles. The mystery kid with a bad attitude and worse manners.

Scott feels ambivalent at best. On the one hand, Stiles is wary and cranky and doesn’t trust Scott worth a damn, which doesn’t exactly inspire any camaraderie. But on the other hand, Stiles is a survivor. He’s made it this far on his own, wherever it is he came from, and it seems like he’s determined to make it to the end of his journey. Scott needs that, right now, if he’s going to make it back to Deaton. Even if both of them have survived on dumb luck, two heads are still better than one, right?

Now he has to see if Stiles is heading in the same direction. If he’s from anywhere north of here, they could at least travel together for part of the way. That should get Scott closer to Beacon Hills before he has to strike out on his own again. If he’s heading in a different direction entirely, then Scott is back at square one. No matter what, though, the problem of convincing Stiles to travel with him will probably be the biggest pain in his ass. It took the kid hours just to give Scott his  _ name _ . He can’t imagine Stiles readily agreeing to stick together for an indefinite number of days.

He spends a half hour or so trying to prepare a speech, but the sentences sound clumsy even in his head. Finally, when clock reads seven thirty, he gives up and moves over to shake Stiles awake.

He probably should have known better. As soon as he lays a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, the other boy jerks away from him. It would be impressive if he actually had control of his body, but as it is, he just ends up smacking his elbow against the wall. He swears and sits up, rubbing his arm and glaring like it’s Scott’s fault. “What?” he snaps.

Scott is frozen, hand still in midair. He should be used to this kind of behavior right now, after all his years living in a state ward that churned out paranoid kids like an assembly line, but it still throws him off balance every time. It did with the other wards, it did with Liam, and not it’s Stiles throwing him off his game.

He finally regains his voice. “Um....we need to go. The vet will probably be here soon.”

Stiles narrows his eyes and glances at the clock hunk crooked above the door. “The sign on the back door said it doesn’t open until eleven.”

“Trust me, he’s going to be in way before that. I work with a vet.” Scott pauses, wincing. “Well, I  _ did _ work with one. Guess that apprenticeship is over.”

Stiles purses his lips but says nothing. He just gets to his feet and straightens out his clothes, which are crooked from sleep. It’s only when he starts walking away that Scott realizes his opportunity is slipping away fast.

“Wait!” he calls out, jumping up and rushing to step between Stiles and the break room door. He manages to get there first, arm thrown in front of Stiles to stop him.

Stiles frowns. “What is it now? I already said thank you for the whole, you know, saving my life thing.”

Scott squints.  _ No, you didn’t _ . “That’s not what I was going to say.”

Stiles’ frown deepens into a scowl. “Then spit it out, dude, I want to get out of here.”

Now or never. “Where are you headed?”

“None of your business.”

“Maybe it could be.”

Stiles bristles. “Excuse me?”

Cringing, Scott tries to backtrack.  _ Of course  _ he’s going about this the wrong way. “I just mean, what if we’re headed in the same direction? Shouldn’t we stick together? Power in numbers, and all that.”

It doesn’t work. Brow furrowed, Stiles takes a step forward into Scott’s space. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Scott doesn’t move out of the doorway, though. Deep in his gut is the anxious feeling of crushed glass, and he thinks aligning himself with an ally could help sweep some of that away. He  _ knows _ this is the right call. Now he just has to convince Stiles.

“I’m heading for Beacon County,” he offers. He practically screams it, too, his voice way too loud considering Stiles is barely a foot away from him.

Stiles pauses. “Beacon County?” He steps back again, looking curious despite himself. Scott can practically see the lure bobbing in the water; all he has to do is reel him in.

“Yeah, I’m from Beacon Hills,” he continues. “I’m trying to get back there.”

Blinking, Stiles tilts his head in question. “Wait, you’re from Beacon Hills? How come I’ve never seen you around school?”

Scott freezes.

Being labeled an unwind has made Scott forget about the other stigma that’s been attached to him: state ward. The reason Stiles hasn’t seen Scott around Beacon Hills High School is because Scott doesn’t go there. None of the wards do. The state home, which incorporates kids from all of Beacon County and a few of its neighbors, is so large and full of so many kids that they don’t bother bussing them out to public high schools. Instead, they hire teachers straight out of college who either try too hard or don’t try enough, full of false confidence or visible nerves. Most of them don’t last more than three years before they’re replaced by a different fresh-faced recruit, and the ones that  _ do  _ last are the ones everyone wishes wouldn’t.

But Scott can’t tell all that to Stiles. Whatever his problems are that led him to be an unwind, there’s every chance that Stiles is just like all the other normal kids Scott has met since he became a ward of the state. People always assume the worst -- his parents storked him at the ward, they got killed in a gang fight, they abandoned him, they’re such deadbeats they can’t afford to take care of him -- and either feel pity, disgust, or a morbid fascination, like he’s some news headline or statistic they’re getting to meet in person. And then, once that initial reaction has passed, they’ll fade into indifference and mild impatience. They’ve oohed and aahed, and now they want to put the freak show back inside his cage.

Scott’s mind scrambles for a good excuse. If the truth isn’t an option, that leaves a lie. He’s never been a good liar, though, and Stiles seems too sharp to fall for something half-baked.

“Devenford Prep,” he blurts out. “I go to Devenford, that’s why you haven’t seen me.” An image of Liam pops up in his mind, and he struggles to remember the details of his story. “My lacrosse teammates busted up my equipment, so I, uh, fucked up their cars.”

Stiles doesn’t look convinced.

“Um, they estimated it was thousands of dollars worth of damage?” Scott says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

The other boy just raises an eyebrow. And then he does the last thing Scott ever would have expected: he nods definitively and holds out his hand. It’s exaggerated and boxy, a mockery of a normal introduction, and Stiles has the smirk to match. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s Bonnie and Clyde this bitch.”

Scott reaches out and returns the handshake without thinking. Then the words register in his brain, and his eyes widen. “Wait, what? Really?”

Stiles shrugs and glances at the clock mounted on the wall. “We should probably scram, right? Time is of the essence, et cetera, et cetera.”

Scott steps out of the doorway to allow Stiles through, then falls into step behind him. “Five minutes ago you were ready to throw me to the wolves. Now you’re ready to trust me just like that?”

Stiles throws an unimpressed look over his shoulder. “I’ll still throw you to the wolves, pal. The second you do something even slightly suspicious, you’ll be in a juvey car so fast you won’t even have time to piss yourself.”

Scott frowns at Stiles’ back. “No, please. Tell me how you really feel.”


	13. Chapter 13

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said  _ no _ .”

“It’s the only option.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You got any other ideas?”

Scott frowns down at the cardboard box standing between them. It’s a donation box, tall and square and weathered. It has some church logo on it, crosses and swirls and words like  _ Jesus _ and  _ Holy _ written in overwrought font, but it’s hidden behind a darkened church, and it’s full of clothes. Regular people clothes. Stiles knows without a doubt that if Scott parades around the state in nothing but hospital issue pajamas, they’re going to get caught in no time. Hence, the donation box.

“I won’t steal from a church,” Scott insists, squaring his jaw. “These clothes are being donated to people who really need them.”

“ _ You _ really need them,” Stiles insists, shoving the box in Scott’s face. They’re barely two hours into their partnership and he already wants to slap the other boy upside the head. It only takes five seconds to figure out Scott is a softie, but  _ god _ , Stiles had no idea he’d be so  _ impractical  _ about it.

“People who are  _ homeless _ , Stiles.”

“Hate to break it to you, pal, but you’re not exactly a legal resident of any home at the moment. You’re a loose cannon. A cash cow that escaped from its pen.  _ You’re  _ homeless.”

Scott takes a step back, eyeing the box like it might eat him. “Yeah, but it’s different.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and reaches into the pile of clothes himself. “So stealing yogurt is fine. Escaping police custody is whatever. Stealing what is legally government property is no big deal. But  _ God forbid _ you take a pair of jeans and a t-shirt when your life could depend on it--”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Scott asks.

Stiles glares at him, then holds up a pair of jeans. His eyes flick down to Scott’s legs and hips, trying to take his measurements with his eyes. He’s a little shorter than Stiles is, but a bit broader, so if Stiles takes his own size and makes a few adjustments--

He throws the jeans back in and starts looking for a new pair, ignoring Scott altogether. He also starts looking for a t-shirt. Scott’s probably a medium, maybe a large. It’s hard to tell under that baggy monstrosity of an outfit. Not that Stiles can judge; he’s wearing an old man’s flannel.

He pulls out another pair of jeans and throws it in Scott’s direction. “Here, try these on.”

Scott doesn’t respond, and for a second, Stiles think he’s going to keep arguing. Then he hears a loud, put-upon sigh and the sound of the jeans unzipping. At the bottom of the pile, he finds a dark red button down shirt that looks about Scott’s size and pulls it out. When he looks up, it’s to find Scott staring at the shirt with barely concealed discomfort, his nose wrinkled and his eyebrows furrowed.

Stiles snorts. “What, are you allergic to polyester? Or is this just not up to the caliber you’re used to at  _ Devenford _ ?” The words come out kind of mean, but Stiles doesn’t try to contain it. If Scott wants to travel with him, he should get to know the  _ real _ Stiles, shouldn’t he?

Scott doesn’t seem to care, though. He just bites his lip and grabs it from Stiles’ hand, slipping it on over the hospital t-shirt.

Thankfully, he doesn’t look much better than Stiles does. The jeans and shirt are both a bit too long, with the pant legs tucked under the soles of his weird white slip-ons and the shirttails hanging down almost to the backs of his knees. Together, the two of them look like kids who snuck into their dad’s closet and tried to play Big Man.

His chest aches with the thought. There are plenty of those memories already floating around his head, memories of dressing up in his dad’s uniform, pinning the badge to the shirt and using his toy water gun to chase down bad guys. His dad always caught him before he could put the items away, but Stiles never got in trouble. The Sheriff would just laugh and pretend to be the bad guy, caught in the act by Sheriff Stiles.

He hasn’t seen his dad laugh like that in a while. Or himself, for that matter.

Stiles shakes his head to clear it, refocusing just in time to see Scott pull something out of the pajama pants he was just wearing. It’s small and white and oddly shaped, and so rare that it takes Stiles a good five seconds just to remember what it is.

“Is that an inhaler?” he asks incredulously.

Scott looks up, eyes wide and skittish. “Oh, um...it’s….” He looks down at the medication hopelessly. “It’s, uh….”

“It’s an inhaler.”

Lips pursed, head still tilted toward the ground, Scott nods. “Yeah.”

The wheels start turning in Stiles’ head faster than he can keep track of.

So Scott has asthma. It’s not an uncommon condition, Stiles knows, but it’s strange that Scott didn’t just have his lungs replaced with a healthy pair. That’s what everyone does, these days. Bad lungs? Get some from an unwind. Bad heart? Get one from an unwind. Tragic accident that severed your spinal cord? You’ll be up and walking with a brand new spine before your legs even have time to atrophy.

Of course, not everyone has the same resources available to them. There are people who can only afford to replace their damaged body parts with slightly less damaged body parts, or the people who can’t afford replacements at all. The only reason Mom hasn’t undergone surgery to replace her frontal lobe is because they can’t afford it. The Sheriff gets good health insurance, but not  _ that _ good, and they’re already swimming in debt from hospital bills. And brain transplants are  _ expensive _ .

But someone who can afford the tuition at Devenford Prep should be able to afford the best organs money can buy. Why wouldn’t Scott replace his asthmatic lungs? Or if it isn’t his original pair, why would he buy faulty ones?

Stiles doesn’t have a problem with lying, as long as he’s the one doing it. Unfair and hypocritical, sure, but it’s the way he’s always been. As cloyingly naive as he seems, Scott is still a wild card, an unwind who’s gone AWOL with a backstory he’s already poking holes in. Stiles teamed up with Scott because he might be useful, and because he’s not confident enough in his own survival skills to bank on making it to Beacon Hills alone, but that doesn’t mean he trusts him. Scott is miles away from earning that privilege.

“Uh, dude?”

Stiles blinks, the engine in his brain slowing down. Scott is staring at him with an uneasy look on his face, and the inhaler has disappeared, probably into the pocket of Scott’s new jeans. It’s only then that Stiles remembers where they are: behind a church, in growing daylight, on the run and without any sort of plan for how they’re going to get their asses back to Beacon Hills.

There’ll be time to puzzle over Scott’s gimpy lungs, but that time is not now.

“Come on,” he grunts, turning away. “I’m starving.”

That’s the first order of business: food. And Stiles knows just where to get it.

Every town, big or small, has a few essential establishments. Cemeteries, fire stations, post offices, everything a community needs close by. More importantly, though, every town has a gas station, and gas stations have food. And even though every nerve ending in Stiles’ body is screeching at him to run home as fast as he can, he knows they’ll need as much of their strength as possible, which means they have to eat. One yogurt cup just doesn’t cut it for growing boys.

The gas station isn’t hard to find. It’s only a few blocks away, and it’s lit with a large neon  _ OPEN  _ sign that buzzes and bleeds light out onto the quiet street. They walk in silence, too busy peeking around corners and watching for civilians to bother chatting, but they don’t run into a single soul.

The building itself is squat and plain, made of white cinder blocks that practically glow in the morning light. It’s almost quaint, like a gas station from decades past where an attendant would rush out and fill up your car for you. 

Looks can be deceiving, though. It only takes one quick glance from around the corner of the building for Stiles to see the security camera mounted under the awning. When he cranes his neck even further and peers through the window, he sees a television showing black-and-white footage hanging from the ceiling directly in front of the door, another camera right next to it. If they just waltz in, it’s almost guaranteed their image will be caught on the security tapes, and if the cops have put out any sort of APB on them, they’re fucked. So they can’t just--

Stiles stumbles a little when Scott brushes past him, their shoulders knocking together. Unbelievably, Scott actually turns around and whispers a quick  _ sorry _ , his brow wrinkled, before turning around and heading straight for the gas station door.

Clumsy even in the best of circumstances, Stiles trips and practically tackles Scott to the ground as he tries to drag him back into the alley. For one heart-stopping second, they’re a mess of too-long sleeves and flailing limbs right in the front of the window before he manages to shove him back against the brick wall of the alley. “What the hell are you doing?” he hisses.

Scott shifts nervously, suddenly uncertain. “Aren’t we getting food?” he asks.

“With what money?” Stiles snaps.

“We don’t have any, so I figured we’d just…” Scott screws his mouth into an uncomfortable grimace and looks down at his shoes, scuffing them gently against the pavement. “I don’t know. Steal stuff?”

“Yeah, and you know what else we’d do? Immediately get caught. Because there’s a camera in there. Multiple cameras, probably.”

Scott’s head snaps back up. “Really?” He frowns. “Wait, why does that matter?”

Stiles raises his eyebrows. This kid can’t be serious. “We’re AWOL unwinds, dude. And we’re near the site of a very spectacular jailbreak.”

Scott nods seriously, then pauses. “Were you part of the highway pile-up, too?”

Stiles realizes his mistake too late. He’s been hoping that Scott would have the common decency to avoid asking about his personal business, like how he escaped or why he’s an unwind in the first place. It turns out he shouldn’t have kept those hopes so high. Then again, he basically brought this on himself.

Doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it, though.

_ I wasn’t in the pile-up _ , he wants to scream.  _ I caused the pile-up _ .

He plows onward. “Point is, they probably have all of the escaped unwinds plastered all over the news, including us. If we walk in there, there’s a chance someone will recognize us, and then it’s game over. Might as well throw yourself into the wood chipper right now.”

Scott wrinkles his nose. “So what do you suggest we do?”

Unfortunately, Stiles hasn’t gotten that far. Telling people why they’re wrong has always been a strong suit of his, but actually coming up with the  _ right _ answer? That’s another beast altogether. Still, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

He looks around for inspiration, eyes darting around the quiet street. There isn’t a lot going on, even though it’s approaching seven in the morning. There are cars passing by every so often, but this community hasn’t quite found its footing, yet, and it shows. It’s both a blessing and a curse, because while Stiles is grateful that there aren’t many people about to see them, it also means there isn’t much in the way of distractions.

That’s what they need. That’s the plan: distract the gas station attendant so that they can sneak in, grab some food, and get out. But how?

Another car zooms past them on the street, engine roaring, and an idea pops into Stiles’ head. He walks to the other end of the alley and looks around the corner. Sitting in one of the two parking spots behind the gas station is a rusted sedan the color of mustard.  _ Perfect _ .

“Alright,” he says, turning back to Scott. “Here’s the plan.”


	14. Chapter 14

Scott has to admit that he’s impressed. If it had been up to him, they would have been sitting around all day while he tried to wring a decent idea out of his empty mind, but Stiles came up with a plan in less than two minutes. It seems like a good one, too. Loud, brash, just this side of reckless, but simple enough that it might work. He only had one objection.

_ Don’t destroy the car _ , he pleaded.

Stiles had immediately deflated, brow furrowing.  _ Why not? _

_ Because! Cars are expensive, dude, and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining one and costing someone thousands of dollars! _

_ I can’t even scratch it a little?  _ It might have been a trick of the light, but it almost looked like Stiles was  _ pouting _ . Like a little kid who was told he couldn’t have a new toy. Frankly, it was a little disturbing. But he had agreed to minimize the damage and had slunk off towards the back alley without another word, a gleam in his eye, his hands already twitching.

Scott gets himself into position, poised right at the front corner of the alley, ready to walk inside the store as soon as the cashier runs out. Stiles had pointed out where all the cameras are, and he instructed Scott to keep his face turned away from them as much as possible. It might not be a foolproof way of maintaining anonymity, but it’s the best they can do.

After a few tense minutes, Scott hears the roar of an engine and the obnoxious blaring of a car horn. Through the window, he sees the cashier’s head snap up in panic, and then he races out the door, garish orange vest trailing behind him like a cape. The screech of tires echoes down the alley before disappearing into the distance.

Scott ducks inside the store, keeping his head down as he passes the first camera. He runs to the counter and reaches over to grab a few plastic bags before darting down the aisles. Water bottles, nuts, crackers, a few candy bars, a couple of applesauce cups, all of it goes into the plastic bags. They don’t know how long they’ll be on the run, so it’s better to be prepared, right?

His stomach feels like it’s full of needles, though, and the ache only increases with every item he snatches off the shelves. He hates this, he  _ hates  _ stealing from others. It reminds him of all the kids in the state ward, the ones who hate their schools and their social workers and their  _ lives _ and take it out on everybody else by stealing and vandalizing and  _ bullying _ . Even though he goes to the same school, works with the same social workers, and lives in the same hell-hole, he always thought he could be better than them. He could prove to himself and others that his circumstances don’t define him, that he’s more than just a nameless miscreant. He can actually  _ make  _ something of himself.

But here he is, stealing for his own personal gain. No better than the kids who pickpocket for fun, who harass strangers and terrorize the smaller kids just because they can.

His thoughts only halt when he sticks a granola bar in his back pocket and his fingers hits the soft edge of cotton. Confused, he pulls it out, and his eyebrows go up in surprise. It’s a twenty-dollar bill.

These pants were donated. Whoever dropped them off at the church probably just forgot the bill was in their pocket and left it without thinking.

He’s never had a lot of money. Not now, in the state home, not when he lived with his mom, not even when he lived with  _ both  _ his parents. He has to wonder: what’s it like to be so secure that you can forget about twenty dollars in your back pocket?

In the end, it doesn’t matter. All he knows is that some of the needles in his stomach disappear when he leaves the bill on the counter by the register. It may not cover everything he’s taking, but it should go a long way.

He ducks out of the store, head still ducked down. His eyes dart every which way, trying to find anyone who is looking at him, or who has a cell phone to their ear, anything that spells trouble for him and Stiles. There’s no one. The only people he can see are sitting inside a diner a little ways down the street, and none of them are looking his way.

He and Stiles had agreed to meet back at the church, if only because it’s the only place they both know how to get to. It’s the most nerve-wracking few blocks that Scott has ever walked, even if the back alleys he takes are all deserted. Every rustle of the plastic bags sounds amplified. Every person he spots at a distance looks like a juvey cop. His footsteps don’t feel automatic, but like every single one of them is a conscious effort, and each one is just bringing him closer to something bad.

With nerves pulled taut and a racing heartbeat, Scott rounds the corner of the church and stops short. Stiles is standing with his back against the rough brick wall, bent over at the waist and heaving for breath. His hair is wild and his cheeks are flushed. His face is contorted in an expression of agony as he clutches at his ribcage.

Scott’s mouth twitches up into a surprised grin. “Hey.”

Stiles jumps, throwing an elbow against the wall in the process. His face twitches into that same expression, mouth open wide and eyes squinted. “Ow,  _ fuck _ . Where’d the hell you come from?”   


“Shopping. Is something wrong, or is cardio just not your friend?”

The other boy grimaces, rubbing his elbow balefully. “You’re one to talk, Wheezy. I had to run half a mile just to get back here in time. What’s  _ your  _ excuse?”

Scott holds up the bags of food, smirking. “Like I said: shopping. Hungry?”

The glint of interest in Stiles’ eye is obvious, but he still makes a show of shrugging and looking as lofty as possible. “Depends. Are you going to cart it around in those bags the entire time like an idiot?”

“How else would I--” Scott cuts himself off when he sees a black object hurtling towards his face. He ducks, but not fast enough; it catches on the top of his head and hangs off of his neck by a strap. He looks down at it; it’s a backpack.

He looks back up to see Stiles spreading out a piece of paper on the brick wall, head tilted innocently. Scott has a sarcastic quip on the tip of his tongue when he notices what the paper is: a map.

“Where’d you get that?” he asks, eyebrows shooting up into his hairline. He hadn’t even thought about it, but it makes sense. How are they supposed to get back to Beacon Hills without directions? They can’t hang around the highway, not when their faces are probably plastered all over the news. He hadn’t thought about the backpack either. Clearly, Stiles had.

“The guy had it in his car. Same with the backpack.”

Before Scott can even open his mouth, Stiles cuts him off. “And no, I didn’t wreck his car. I left it in one piece in a parking lot like half a mile away.”

Scott blinks. “Thank you,” he stutters. He hadn’t actually expected Stiles to hold back; he isn’t exactly the type to listen to directions. They haven’t even known each other twenty-four hours, and Scott already knows that. Maybe he’s more reasonable than Scott gives him credit for.

“I may have popped a tire riding the curb, though.”

And there it is. Scott grimaces. “As long as it was an accident.”

“If it soothes your delicate sensibilities, sure.”

Sighing, Scott sets the plastic bags on the ground and grabs the backpack from around his neck. He busies himself transferring the food into the pack, glancing around every so often to make sure they’re still alone. More and more cars are starting to whiz by on the road, but the foot traffic remains nonexistent. That kind of luck can’t last forever, so once the backpack is zipped tight and hiked up on his shoulders, he decides that it’s time to pester Stiles. 

Stiles, who has been intently studying the map for almost five minutes. He hasn’t been quiet about it, either, humming in thought, flicking one corner of the paper back and forth incessantly, his shoes crunching the gravel as he shifts his weight side to side. He might even be mumbling to himself, his voice soft enough that Scott can’t make out the words.

“So where to, Lewis and Clark?” he asks, smiling.

Stiles shoots him a glare. “Shouldn’t you be nicer to the guy holding the map? I don’t see  _ you _ blazing a trail in the right direction.”

Scott shrugs. “Shouldn’t you be nicer to the guy carrying all the food?”

Pursing his lips, Stiles just turns back to the map. “I’m going to keep us away from the highways and major roads, so we’ll mostly be walking through the woods and across fields and stuff. No need to attract attention to ourselves by parading around where we could get recognized.”

“Won’t we get spotted in the fields? By farmers or something?”

Stiles shakes his head as he folds up the map. “It’s the middle of winter, there shouldn’t be any reason for farmers to be out in their fields. Not regularly, at least.”

Scott cocks a brow. “Are you one hundred percent sure about that?”

Throwing his hands up in a full-body shrug, Stiles snaps, “Why would someone be checking their land in January? It makes no sense.”

“So what you’re saying is, no, you’re not one hundred percent sure.”

Stiles throws his head back and grunts in frustration. “Can we just go? We’re burnin’ daylight, here.”

Scott gestures for him to lead the way, trying to keep the smile off of his face. A frustrated Stiles is an entertaining Stiles, apparently. “Lead the way.”

Stuffing the map in the back pocket of his jeans, Stiles heads in the opposite direction they came from. “The woods we want to leave through are this way, at the north end of town. And by the way,” he says, turning and walking backwards so he can jab a finger in Scott’s direction. “I’m not Lewis  _ or  _ Clark. They had no idea where the hell they were going. If anything, I’m Sacagawea.  _ She  _ was a badass.”

Scott smirks. “If it soothes your delicate sensibilities, sure.”

Stiles’ glare returns full-force, and he nearly trips on a rock in his huff, turning away and muttering under his breath. Before he does, Scott sees the beginnings of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.


	15. Chapter 15

Stiles has been camping only once in his entire life. He was nine. It was before his mom got sick and his dad got promoted, back when they actually did shit like go on family trips. It was also before they realized that Stiles was as outdoorsy as an air conditioning unit. The three of them had piled in the car with their tent and their sleeping bags, full of high hopes and stocked with enough marshmallows to survive a week, and had driven half an hour to a local campground.

They made it three hours. Stiles quickly figured out how much he hated the damp and the bugs, and promptly refused to sit down unless there were at least three layers between him and the ground. His mom accidentally went to the bathroom hunched in poison ivy, and immediately broke out in a painful rash on the bottoms of her thighs. His dad tripped on a log Stiles had left sitting out, spraining his ankle and making it almost impossible for him to set up the tent. They left before they could even start the campfire. 

It’s still one of Stiles’ favorite memories, despite all that. They drove to the nearest bowling alley and spent three hours trying to teach Stiles how to get a strike, filling up with crappy bowling alley food and at least two bags of marshmallows. 

As for camping, though, Stiles had assumed that was it. He didn’t like the outside, the outside didn’t like him, and never the twain shall meet, if he had anything to say about it. Quick jaunts in the preserve were fine. Goofing off in the backyard was fine. But sleeping outside? Eating outside?  _ Peeing  _ outside? No chance in hell.

He should have known better. 

“Can’t we keep going until we hit another suburb? There’s no place like home.”

Scott snorts and brushes past him, strolling into the barn like it’s not dark and musty and spattered with bird shit. “Someone else’s home, you mean.”

“Irrelevant,” Stiles mumbles, glancing around at the creaky rafters and dusty floor. This place looks way too gross and unstable to even breathe in, let alone sleep in, but Scott had insisted.  _ It’ll be dark soon _ , he said.  _ We need a place to hide out for the night, and this place looks abandoned _ , he said.  _ It won’t be that bad _ , he said.

What a filthy liar. “If I get Lyme disease in here, I’m taking you down with me.”

“Stop being such a baby and come eat your applesauce,” Scott says, giggling to himself. He flops down onto the ground and tosses the backpack down in front of him, unzipping it so he can rummage around inside. True to his word, he pulls out two cups of applesauce, along with two granola bars. He holds up one of each in Stiles’ direction, his smile so wide it forces his eyes into sparkling crescents. 

Stiles takes them before he can stop himself, sliding down the wall to sit next to him. “Really? Applesauce? You realize we don’t have spoons, right?”

“The life of a criminal is harsh and unforgiving.”

That startles a laugh out of Stiles, sharp and short and surprisingly genuine. It’s been awhile since someone made him laugh. He didn’t realize how much he missed it.

Then he sees Scott’s expression. The other boy is looking at the food in his lap, fiddling with the granola wrapper but not actually opening it. There’s a tilted smile in the corner of his mouth, but it’s fading, leaving behind the awkward moue of someone biting the inside of their cheek. His shoulders are hunched up slightly, and Stiles watches as he leans up against the barn wall, a sigh escaping into the moldy air. 

Scott is  _ sad _ . Bothered. Upset. The idea of being a criminal is apparently just complete anathema to him.

It’s not exactly news. Scott has spent all day shining his goody-two-shoes, getting in their way at almost every turn, even though he  _ knew  _ he’d have to give in. Stiles thought it was a pride thing, though. If Scott really is a Devenford kid, he was probably raised with a stick up his ass and a talent for looking down his nose. Of course he would object to stealing and joyriding and all the other fun activities they took part in today. That kind of shit is for  _ losers _ . 

But it doesn’t add up. Why would a Devenford kid have asthma? Why would the idea of wrecking someone’s car or stealing from a donation box or a gas station make him uncomfortable? He claimed he was brought in for wrecking someone’s car, but that smells of bullshit. Scott wasn’t disdainful about those things, he was  _ upset _ . And now, here he is, the guilt written loud and clear on a face that’s too easy to read. Is he lying? Why would he? What’s his  _ real  _ story?

The thought freezes Stiles in place. The whole point of this partnership is to get them both back to Beacon Hills in one piece, literally. He’s not here to unlock someone’s tragic backstory, or let them unlock his own.

He turns to his food and rips the foil off of the applesauce. After an entire day of walking around in the woods and five minutes of being inside this asbestos-filled nightmare, he doesn’t trust his hands to be clean. He settles for just sticking his face into the little plastic cup, lapping up what he can with his tongue. He’s never been one for table manners, anyway. 

For a few blissful minutes, they sit in a silence only broken by the crinkle of foil wrappers. It’s easier this way. When there’s no talking, Stiles doesn’t have to worry about inane questions from Scott or his own traitorous mouth. It doesn’t stop him from  _ thinking  _ of the questions, of course, but at least he doesn’t verbalize them. Things like  _ Why me?  _ and  _ How many people died because of me? _ and  _ Why would a kid like Scott be unwound?  _ and--

“Are we bad people?”

Stiles nearly chokes on his granola bar. “Excuse me?” he asks, confused and indignant and uncaring of the crumbs that fly out of his mouth.

His reaction doesn’t faze Scott, who just keeps staring into his applesauce, brow furrowed like it’s yelling at him. “The organs from unwinds save lives every day. Because of unwinds, there are people who can walk, see, breath, hear, and  _ live  _ again. Unwinding does good in the world.”

“You sound like one of those creepy commercials for harvest camps,” Stiles says dismissively, but something unpleasant is burrowing into his gut. Something like guilt, and it’s partner in crime, uncertainty. 

He’s seen those commercials all his life. Smiling surgeons, smiling kids, chirping birds, shining sun. One big happy facility.  _ Live your life in the divided state. You’ll serve a greater purpose.  _ The idea wasn’t to get teenagers to sign themselves up for unwinding, but to make them more comfortable with the idea. To normalize it. And to convince their parents that it was a humane solution to problem children. 

It’s only now, at the doorstep of his own unwinding, that he realizes how effective it was. He at that shit up, just like everybody else. He’s shrug, or snicker at the cheesy graphics and stupid slogans, but he never stopped to question its message. He just accepted it. Unwinding was a thing. A thing that happened to other people.

He wishes he could answer Scott’s question with a resounding  _ no _ . He wants to launch himself into a rant about agency and bodily autonomy and right to life and  _ no, Scott, unwinding is wrong _ , because that’s how he feels. All of his rage and despair and desperation are being fed into that one channel, because if unwinding is wrong, then he can’t be unwound, right?

But does he really, truly feel that way? Or is it just self-preservation? Of course the guy staring down the barrel of a gun is going to want more gun control. Three days ago, would he have felt the same? No. Three days ago, he would have given anything for his mom to get a new frontal lobe.

Fuck. This is exactly why he didn’t want any talking. 

Which is, of course, why Scott keeps doing exactly that. “I mean, would it be so bad to serve a higher purpose?” he asks. He doesn’t seem to believe his own words, but he barrels on anyway. “Maybe we’re meant to help people. Maybe this is what we’re meant to do.”

“Not me,” Stiles mutters. “I shouldn’t be here at all.” He crumbles up his trash and tries to throw it across the barn. It doesn’t go very far, fluttering about two feet on its aluminum wings before falling to the ground. 

“Why not?”

“Because my parents don’t actually--” Stiles pauses.  _ That tricky bastard _ . Stiles made a vow to withhold personal information, and here he is, about to spill the beans. “I just don’t deserve it, okay?” he snaps.

He can’t make out Scott’s expression in the dying light, but even after just one day, it isn’t hard for Stiles to imagine it: soft eyes, mouth turned down at the corners, his gaze unfocused as he stares off into the distance. There’s a few seconds of silence, during which Stiles prays for this conversation to be over, and then:

“Does anyone?”

It’s a slap in the face, except in his chest. A slap in the heart. Or maybe the lungs. If there was any doubt that Stiles is a hypocrite, it’s obliterated, because Scott’s right. Does anyone deserve to be unwound? What makes Stiles so special? Where does he get off deeming himself worthy of his own existence while denying that worth to others? He can blame Haigh and Rollins all he wants, and he fully intends to, but he can’t kid himself into thinking he’s an innocent martyr in all this. Would the world be worse off without him in it?

He thinks of his dad’s stress lines, the slump of his shoulders when he’s called into the principal’s office again, the bags under his eyes and the rotating door of whiskey bottles in their top shelf. He thinks of his mom, and the time he’s walked in on her smiling face only to see it decay into a suspicious scowl when she sees him. He thinks of the highway pile-up, of the smoke and the screams and the oily sheen of blood. 

No, the world would not be worse off.

Stiles hates this. He’s definitive by nature, prizing conviction over almost anything else. But right now, it feels like his entire life is one big doubt, like he’s got one foot planted on either side of a chasm that’s widening every second. Is unwinding wrong? If he says yes, is it just because he doesn’t want it to happen to him? If he says no, how can he justify kicking AWOL? What does that make him?

Only one thing is for sure. Above all else, Stiles knows this: he’s not turning himself in. 

“I don’t want to be unwound,” he says simply. “We can argue all day about whether or not that makes me a bad person, but nothing will change my mind. I’ll survive to eighteen and figure out the details later.”

Officially and irrevocably done with this shit, Stiles inches down until he’s lying on his back. As an afterthought, he reaches over Scott’s legs and grabs the backpack, stuffing it under his head as a lumpy makeshift pillow. It’s officially after dark, and he can feel his brain screaming for a chance to shut off. “You take first watch,” he mumbles. “Wake me up in a couple of hours.” 

It takes a while to fall asleep, though. Scott shuts up, but Stiles’ thoughts won’t. Questions scurry around like ants in his skull, biting at him for answers he doesn’t have. 

And when he finally does fall asleep, his dreams are filled with smoke.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More violence. Canon-typical.

_ I don’t want to be unwound _ . 

The words run on an endless loop, a merry-go-round with rusty poles and distorted sound. Scott hears it up until the moment he falls asleep, and it picks right back up when Stiles jostles him awake. 

_ I don’t want to be unwound _ . 

That’s what it all comes down to, right? That’s why he ran from that bus. That’s why he’s still running. It’s why he’s stolen clothes and food, and why he squatted in someone’s ramshackle barn for the night. It’s like Stiles said: survive to eighteen, figure out the details later. Survival.

It doesn’t stop Scott from wondering, though. Questions pop up like weeds as he munches on another granola bar and sips a bottle of water, as he zips up the backpack and follows Stiles out into the woods, as the watery sun climbs higher and higher overhead. 

Is running away the right thing to do? Is he being selfish? What purpose does he serve in a unified state? Why does he get to survive, when people like Cody don’t? How many people are dying because his body isn’t available to save them? 

_ I don’t want to be unwound _ . 

His eyes drift over to Stiles, who is carefully picking his way through the trees. He doesn’t know Stiles’ story; for all Scott knows, he could be a hardened criminal sent to his unwinding for unspeakable acts. According to the law, Stiles is now worth more cut into pieces than as a whole human being. But looking at him now, at his fidgeting hands, at his expressive eyes, at the tiny scrunch in his nose when he steps in a patch of mud, Scott can’t make himself agree with the law. There’s so much  _ life  _ in Stiles, in his intelligence, in his humor, in his penchant for trouble. All of it. Why should that life be torn apart? Why shouldn’t Stiles get to fight for his right to live the same way all those potential transplant recipients are? They’re fighting in a hospital bed; Stiles is fighting in the middle of the woods somewhere in northern California. 

Maybe that’s all they’re doing. That’s all any AWOL does: fight for their right to live. They’re playing the game they’ve been forced into, and they’re playing to win. AWOLs are just pawns trying to stay on the board. 

“How many AWOLs are out there, do you think?”

Stiles glances at him as he steps over a fallen tree. “Like, in the entire country? California? Beacon County? What are the parameters here, dude?”

Scott thinks of the bus, and all the unwinds who ran off into the night. “Well, we already know there are a lot more in California right now.”

“What do you mean?” Stiles asks, frowning.

Scott squints at him. “The bus? From the pile-up?”

Stiles, who had been standing on top of a log, slips off and nearly faceplants on the forest floor. His eyes widen. “That bus was full of unwinds?”

It’s Scott’s turn to frown. “You mean that isn’t where you kicked AWOL?” Not that he’d given it much thought, but when he ran into another AWOL so close to the highway, he’d assumed that Stiles was from the bus, too. It’s not like Scott knew everyone who was on it, or even saw their faces, and so far, Stiles hadn’t offered another explanation. But here is, acting totally clueless. 

Stiles won’t look at him, choosing instead to focus on where he’s placing his feet. “Not exactly, no. So everyone made it off the bus? They all got away?”

Cody flashes through Scott’s head, and his stomach clenches. “No. There was this one kid, Cody. He, uh. He died. Injuries from the crash. Right there in front of me.” There was so much of everything. Blood. Tears. Fear. And Scott couldn’t do anything about it. 

He glances up at Stiles, who has stopped walking and is staring at the ground. He looks as dazed as Scott feels, his eyes unfocused, his jaw clenched, his hands hanging loosely at his sides and for once completely still.

“Stiles?” he asks gently. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Stiles’ lips barely move. The rest of his body is weathered marble, still and tired. “I’m just thinking about the, uh. The pile-up.”

Scott waits for the rest of his thought, but it never comes. For a moment, they just stand there, drowning in the sunlight pouring through the treetops. He’s not exactly sure what to say. “Did you know someone who was involved?” he tries. 

“No. Just thinking about how it must have happened. Who was responsible.”

Scott hadn’t thought about it. All he remembers is the bus veering off the highway to avoid something in front of it, probably one of the other wrecks. What caused the first car to crash? What knocked over the first domino? 

He’s not sure he cares. 

“We might never know what really happened,” he points out. “The point is, it did happen. People will drive themselves crazy trying to blame just one person. Probably because there isn’t one person to blame.”

The question Scott  _ does  _ care about concerns Stiles. If he wasn’t in the pile-up himself, why is he so worried about it? Why does he look so haunted? 

He doesn’t get time to ponder it. One second, the forest is soft with the whispers of birds. The next, there’s an apocalyptic crack, the hiss of splintering wood, and a guttural shriek. Stiles has collapsed onto the forest floor, his hand fluttering towards his ankles. They’re bound with a length of rope, each end weighted with a round metal ball. There’s another crack, and Scott has to shield his eyes from a shower of wooden splinters. Gunfire. 

“Stiles!” Scott dives towards him, ducking and nearly tripping over his own feet when he hears another crack. He falls to his knees next to Stiles’ hunched form, curving his body to give him some kind of cover. Stiles is desperately tugging at the bola wrapped around his legs, but one of the metal weights is trapped under a layer of rope too tight to loosen.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Stiles is grunting. “I can’t get it off. It needs to be cut off. Fuck, that’s probably the point, right? Fuck.”

Another crack, more splinters raining down like ash. In between the shots, Scott thinks he can hear the crunching of dead leaves getting closer and closer. He ducks again, his heart racing, expecting an explosion of pain in his back at any second. The trees are thick enough to provide some cover, but that won’t last long. “What do we do? How do we get out of here?” he asks, panicked. 

Stiles just shakes his head. “You run. Right now. Get out of here, before they decide to stop playing with their food.” 

The footsteps are getting closer, but slowly, almost leisurely. Stiles is right, they’re not aiming to kill. They’re probably just trying to keep them pinned down so they can capture them. 

Juvey cops would have tranq guns. These must be parts pirates, hunting down bodies to sell on the black market. 

That means they won’t want to cause any serious damage. Broken bodies aren’t worth as much. That gives Scott an advantage, right?

“Stay here,” he whispers, only vaguely aware of how dumb it sounds. Ignoring Stiles’ protests, he gets to his feet, bent over as far as he can, and starts looking for a weapon. He finds the thickest log he can, hefts it in his hand, and stands up straighter. Now he just has to find--

A hand grasps at his hair, tugging his head back. His body reacts faster than his mind, his arms craning back, the log in his hands connecting with something hard. The hand lets go of him, and he takes the opportunity to stumble further away, trying to put distance between the attacker and Stiles. 

He doesn’t get very far, though, the hand coming back to grab at the back of his shirt. It yanks him backwards, and he falls to the ground, gasping as the air is knocked out of his lungs, fumbling wildly when a heavy weight straddles his waist. 

It’s a  _ kid _ . He’s Scott’s age, maybe younger, handsome and blonde and brimming with strength and aggression. His looks positively  _ gleeful _ . 

A goddamn kid.

“This is almost too easy,” the boy says, despite the growing bruise on his forehead from the log. “You’re not exactly in peak physical condition, are you, buddy?” He reaches behind himself and grabs something from his back pocket: a syringe. “You’ll still fetch us a pretty penny, though.”

Despite his wild and clumsy technique, it’s clear this kid has taken down unwinds before. It shows in the practiced way he grabs Scott’s scalp and pushes his head into the dirt, tearing the cap off the syringe with his teeth and pressing it to a vein in Scott’s neck. 

He’s not the only one with experience, though. Scott may not be a fighter, but you don’t grow up in a state home without learning a few things. 

Before the boy can stick the needle through his skin, Scott reaches up and claps him over the ears, pushing him off when the pain makes him lose his balance. Then it’s just a matter of grabbing the syringe from his slack hand, and finding a vein in his neck. It’s easy compared to dogs and cats; no fur to get in the way. 

It takes a few seconds for the boy to fall unconscious, his body going limp, his eyes wide with surprise. How many kids has this guy taken down? How many of them didn’t put up a fight? When the sedative finally takes effect, Scott isn’t gentle, letting the boy’s head smack down onto the ground a satisfying  _ thump _ . 

He whirls around, eyes desperately seeking out Stiles’ prone form, spotting him a few feet away. 

He’s not moving. 

“Stiles!” He runs over, kneeling over him once again, hands fluttering up and down Stiles’ body. His eyes are closed, but his chest is still rising and falling in shallow breaths. He’s not dead, he’s unconscious. 

That’s when he sees it: a tiny red mark on the skin of Stiles’ neck, like the kind that comes from blood welling to the surface of a puncture mark. Like the kind that comes from a syringe. 

He connects the dots just as a new, smaller hand grabs his hair, pulls his head back, and sinks something sharp and narrow into his throat. 

It takes a few seconds for Scott to fall unconscious. The hands are not gentle, letting him fall backwards onto the ground with a painful  _ thump _ . 

He’s out before he can feel the impact. 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-typical violence.

Stiles used to think danger was exciting. He wanted to be a cop like his dad. On bad days, he wanted to be the criminal, living on the edge and doing what he pleased. He wanted to be a spy, a federal agent, a mercenary, a bounty hunter, anything and everything that required being a badass.

He’s over it. Being knocked out and tied up multiple times over the span of a few days will do that to you. 

He wakes up on his side, his wrists bound in front of him with rope. When he wiggles his body, it aches in all the usual places, but there’s the added fun of a stinging rash on his ankles. He remembers the crack of a gun, over and over again, the weight at his ankles, tying them together and toppling him to the ground. 

The floor and walls are rumbling; he’s in a car again. Not in the trunk, though. There’s more space than that, and he can make out walls and a large set of windowless doors. It’s a van, one without back seats, empty except for their bodies and a tool box against one wall. 

Flipping onto his back turns out to be a bad idea. As soon as he moves his head, it starts to swim, nausea erupting in his stomach. He can’t hold back the miserable, hung-over groan that tumbles from his lips. 

“Are they waking up?” a voice asks, muffled slightly by the roar of the road underneath them. The parts pirates. On instinct, Stiles goes limp and closes his eyes. People don’t pay attention when you’re unconscious, and attention is exactly what he wants to avoid right now. 

Somewhere towards the front of the van, fabric rustles. There’s a pause, and then-- “No. One of them just rolled over, that’s all.”

Them. More than one. Stiles and--

Forgetting his ruse, Stiles opens his eyes and picks up his head, gritting his teeth at the rising tide of nausea. It’s dark back here, but not too dark to make out the shape of a body lying a few feet away, dark hair and jeans and the back of a too-big shirt.

Scott. Stupid Scott, who should have just run away when he had the chance. Who stayed behind to defend Stiles instead. Who clearly paid for it. 

It must have been the girl. Stiles had watched as Scott and the blonde boy fought on the forest floor, filling the air with grunts and the rustling of leaves. He was so focused on them, he didn’t see a second threat looming over him until it was too late. The girl had kneeled on top of his chest, pressed the needle to his neck, and hit the plunger. The last thing he remembers is her face, dark eyes glittering with mirth behind a curtain of dark hair. She must have gotten the drop on Scott, too. 

“--Scott McCall and, uh….what is this, Polish? Fuck,” the boy mutters. Stiles goes stock-still, finally remembering his plan to play dead. Somehow, the parts pirates haven’t noticed him open his eyes and move around. He plans on keeping it that way. “He goes by ‘Stiles.’ Stiles Stilinski. Both kicked AWOL during that pile-up a few miles down the I-5.” The parts pirates must have access to an AWOL database. Either that, or Scott and Stiles are in the news. 

“How much are they worth?” the girl asks. She sounds ridiculously young. Both of them do. It’s kind of insulting. In a perfect world, Stiles would be an over-confident junior trying to convince these dumbass freshmen that there’s a pool on the roof of the high school. Instead, they have him hog-tied in the back of their creepy van, and they plan on selling his body to the highest bidder. How is it that they can run around, turning in unwinds, and not get unwound themselves? How much blood must they have on their hands if they’ve survived in this line of work?

“Stiles might be worth something. His grades and IQ scores are...oh, whoops. His mother has a form of dementia. Bad genes. Buyers won’t want that kind of risk.”

Heat creeps up Stiles’ neck and into his cheeks. To hear his mother’s illness --which has caused metric fucktons of pain in his family-- reduced to economics is infuriating. The fear of inheriting it has clouded his life for years, ever since the day he sat down and googled the chances. Every panic attack, every bad dream, every mood swing, he wondered,  _ Is this it? Am I losing my mind? _

All these guys care about is how it affects their asking price.

“And Scott won’t be worth much of anything. Decent grades, but nothing out of the ordinary. No athletic skill, asthmatic lungs. No marketable talents. We’ll be lucky if we get our baseline payment.”

Stiles clenches his jaw until his teeth hurt, glaring holes through his closed eyelids.

He needs an escape plan. The first time, all he had to do was escape one person, and he was by himself. This time, it’s two people, and he’s not working alone. Things are a bit more complicated. But there’s no chance in hell he’s leaving Scott behind, not after Scott risked his life for him. Stiles may fail at a lot of things, but paying his debts is not one of them. Plus, he hates the way the parts pirates were talking about Scott, like he can be boiled down to standardized test scores and intramural sports, like that doesn’t ignore his kindness and bravery and  _ heart _ . Fuck them. Scott is better than that. 

If they just run away from the van, though, there’s very little chance they’ll make it back to Beacon Hills. The parts pirates will just run them down again; as young as they are, they obviously have more technology and experience than Stiles can match. He got lucky with Rollins, and that’s only because she had to keep up appearances as a police officer. These guys have no such limitations.

That means he and Scott need a faster way home. Stiles could hotwire a car, but they’re left with the same problem: the parts pirates could just chase them down.

So Scott and Stiles need to find faster transportation for themselves while also making sure the parts pirates can’t use their own. Solution: steal their van.

Now, Stiles just needs to figure out how.

Somewhere next to him, beneath the noise of the highway, Stiles hears the rustle of fabric. As slowly and subtly as possible, he opens his eyes and turns his head to look.

Scott is awake, and has rolled over to law on his back. When he turns his neck to look at Stiles, his eyes are still cloudy and unfocused, but it doesn’t take long for him to catch up, and Stiles watches as they widen in fear and flick in the direction of the front seat.

Stiles shakes his head, hoping Scott doesn’t do anything to draw attention to himself. As pointedly as he can, he closes his eyes and continues doing his best impersonation of a comatose patient, keeping his breaths deep and even, his face slack. Surprising the pirates while they’re driving won’t do anyone any good. They could end up crashing, or getting shot, or any number of shitty things. No, they have to play this right. They have to wait for the right moment. 

Stiles  _ hates _ waiting. And because life is terrible at all times, he has to do a lot of it, because the right moment doesn’t come for a long time. It’s an odd sort of hell, being both afraid and bored at the same time. Every time he feels the brakes being applied, he aches for something to happen at the same time as he aches for everything to stay the same just a little while longer. Stopping means escape, but stopping also means being one step closer to the chop shop.

He tries to occupy himself by thinking of ways to escape, but he comes up empty. Do they jump them once the van stops? What if they have backup? Should they do it anyway? It’s a tangled mess of possibilities, most of them horrible.

Finally and much too soon, they slow down. Stiles feels his body slide towards the wall of the van as it takes a slight curve, probably an exit ramp. Then, after another minute of driving, they make a sharp turn and crawl to a stop. The parts pirates start making noise, unbuckling their seatbelts and loading their guns. Stiles wants nothing more than to open his eyes, scan the surroundings, and do something, but he forces himself to remain still. He can only hope that Scott does the same.

“Are they still out?” the boy asks. 

There’s a rustle of clothing, and Stiles resists the urge to tense his body. He forces his limbs to relax, forces his inhales and exhales to slow down, and waits. 

“Yeah,” the girls says. “Probably not for long, though.  _ You  _ were only out for about twenty minutes, and it’s been about fifteen since their second dose.” Her voice is venomous with annoyance and condescension. Scott must have managed to knock the boy out with his own sedative, Stiles realizes. The idea gives him immense satisfaction. Gentle Scott, kicking ass and taking names. 

“Alright,” the boy says through gritted teeth. One of the car doors opens. The bustle of the highway is farther away, but still audible. They can’t be far from it. A side street? An access road? A suburb? “Hit ‘em with another one.” There’s the crunch of gravel, the click of a cocked gun, and then the car door is slammed shut.

Stiles’ brain kicks into overdrive. Worst case scenario, the boy just got out to talk with a buyer, and there’s another car waiting just a couple of yards away, ready to take Scott and Stiles to an illegal, black market harvest camp. This transfer will be the last opportunity to escape; after this, security will be too heavy. Stiles has seen the news stories, has read through the case files on his dad’s desk; parts pirates don’t fuck around. And now, Nurse Ratched over there is going to make sure they’re unconscious until the moment they hit the operating table.

If Stiles was waiting for the right moment, this is probably it.

Thankfully, she goes for him first. It’s torture, waiting for her with closed eyes. He listens to her turn off the van and clamber into the back. He feels her settle on top of him, hears the soft pop of the cap coming off the needle. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but he’d be willing to bet that she’s smiling, her eyes lit up with a sadistic fire.  _ Asshole _ , he thinks.

Just as the tip of the needle touches his neck, he lunges. 

It works. She doesn’t expect him to move at all, let alone  _ towards _ her. The syringe bites into his skin, but before she can press the plunger, he crashes his head into her nose and does his best to shake her off. Taken aback, she flinches and falls on her ass next to his legs. 

He doesn’t get time to celebrate. As he struggles to sit up despite the pain shrieking in his skull, he opens his eyes in time to see her winding her fist back, aiming straight for his face. 

It never lands. Scott has scrambled to his knees, and has brought the weight of his bound hands down on her arm, derailing her punch and sending her fist into the floor of the van. Sitting back on his ass, Stiles raises his legs and kicks them into her stomach. Her eyes go wide as she gasps for air, fumbling with the gun on her belt. Launching himself on top of her, Stiles snatches it out of her grip. She throws a bony knee up into his ribcage, but he keeps his hold on the weapon, rolling away from her with a broken moan. He heaves himself back onto his knees, and before he can blink, he has the gun raised in the air, aiming straight for her chest, finger poised on the trigger--

“Stiles!”

He blinks. Scott is behind the girl, his arm around her throat, his body straining to keep her from breaking free. She’s throwing herself into it, too, her muscles taut under dark skin shining with sweat and blood, her lips curled into a snarl, her nails digging into Scott’s forearm. Scott is a frayed rope about to snap or a building about to crumble; any moment now, he’ll break. 

Stiles’ eyes fall on the syringe, abandoned on the dirty van carpet. Dropping the gun, he reaches down and grabs it, gripping it tight in both hands. He throws himself at her just as she’s breaking free, her elbow poised to jam Scott’s nose straight into his brain. The needle sinks into her neck.

She still has enough time to shove Scott off of her, sending him crashing into the van wall, but the sedative works fast. Within seconds, she’s out, and it’s just a matter of shoving her towards the back doors where she’ll be out of the way. 

Stiles glances through the front windshield. A couple yards in front of them is a battered black hearse, its front bumper obscured by a loose circle of men. Amazingly, none of them are paying attention to the van; Scott and Stiles still have the upper hand.

His eyes zero in on the tool box. Crawling over, he flips open the lid, revealing a hellish cache of weapons. It doesn’t take long to find a knife sharp enough to cut through rope. Scott winces when Stiles brings it near him, but Stiles’ hands are quick and sure, slicing through the rope without leaving a single mark on Scott’s skin. Scott’s hands are less sure, but he does it all the same, carefully edging the knife between Stiles’ wrists until the rope frays and breaks. . 

“You drive,” Stiles tells him, snagging the gun off of the floor and climbing into the passenger seat. Outside, the boy is still talking with the other men. Two of them are tall and thick, dressed in head-to-toe black, but the third is impressively normal, a CEO-looking motherfucker with a three-piece suit and wireframe glasses. The buyer and his two hired guns, probably. 

The road they’re on is made of equal parts gravel and mud. It’s not far from the highway, if the road sign in the distance is any indication, but it looks abandoned, and it’s surrounded on both sides by tall trees heavy with pine needles. Isolated, hidden, but close to escape; it’s the perfect place for a transfer. 

The man in the suit waves a hand at one of his guards, who reaches into the front seat of the hearse and pulls out a black duffel bag. He hands it to the boy, and the three men settle back to watch as the boy unzips it and starts pulling out stacks of cash. It must be his payment.

They’re running out of time. 

Scott climbs into the driver’s seat beside him, and Stiles glances at him. “You think you can turn this thing around quickly?” he asks, checking the safety on the pistol. 

Scott frowns. “Probably. Why?”

“I’m going to shoot out the tires on the Deathmobile over there, and then you’re gonna drive like a bat out of hell in the other direction. Got it?”

Swallowing nervously, Scott flicks a finger at the keys still sitting in the ignition. “Yeah, I guess.”

Stiles raises an eyebrow. “We only have one shot at this. If shit goes pear-shaped, we won’t get another chance. Can you handle it?”

Scott shoots him a glare. “Not helping.”

“Just don’t let shit go pear-shaped,” Stiles says, shrugging. Looking at Scott, though, something in him softens. Without meaning to, he raises a hand and squeezes Scott’s shoulder. It feels like an alien version of himself has taken over when his mouth opens of its own volition and he says, with complete sincerity, “You’ll be fine, okay? You can do this.  _ We  _ can do this.”

Surprised, Scott looks up at him. The way he looks at Stiles, eyes soft with trust, staring at Stiles like he’s the only thing that matters, like he’s the only thing Scott can count on--

Stiles’s face heats up. Maybe alien Stiles isn’t so bad. 

He coughs nervously. “We gotta go,” he says, and sure enough, when he looks outside, the boy is zipping up the duffel bag and hoisting it onto his shoulder. One of the guards reaches back into the hearse and pulls out two masses of black canvas: body bags. For the merchandise. 

“Start the car,” Stiles barks, and Scott turns the key. The engine roars to life, vibrating underneath Stiles’ feet as he opens the passenger door and stands up on the running board. He braces his arm against the top of the door as he holds the gun out in front of him. The men see him, one of the guards pushing the buyer behind him while the other pulls out his own weapon, but Stiles is the son of a cop; it takes him only seconds to aim and shoot the two front tires of the hearse, one corner of his mouth twitching up when he hears the hiss of escaping air. 

He sits back down and pulls his door shut just as the bullets start flying. “Drive!”

The road is barely wide enough for a U-turn, the tires dipping down onto the forest floor before righting themselves on the road. Both of them wince as the sound of gunfire shatters the air, bullets pinging off of the rear bumper and denting the metal doors with a dull thump, but it doesn’t take long for the van to speed out of range.

Stiles clicks the safety back on the gun and sets it in the glove box. He has one last thing to take care of: the girl.

It’s almost anticlimactic, compared to their daring escape. Stiles scrambles into the back, waiting for Scott to slow to a crawl before opening the rear doors and heaving her body outside. After a moment of contemplation, he hops out and tugs her over to the side of the road, close enough to the shoulder to be seen, but not close enough to get hit. This girl may have tried to sell his body for rent money, but the idea of her getting run over by a car doesn’t sit right with him. Must be Scott’s influence, the bastard. He runs back to the van and throws himself inside, shutting the doors behind him and climbing back into the passenger seat. 

“That was nice of you,” Scott says, grinning. 

Stiles shrugs magnanimously. “What can I say? I’m a giver.”

Scott’s laugh is exhausted and sharp and just a bit too loud, frayed at the edges with relief and exhaustion. 

Stiles never wants it to end.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for any asthma inconsistencies.

The questions come when he least expects them.

Granted, Scott isn’t sure he  _ ever _ expected Stiles to start asking questions. Every since they met, Stiles has made it perfectly clear, over and over again, that he’s not interested in sharing. And how can Scott complain, when he’s been lying this whole time, trying to convince Stiles that he’s a private school kid and not a state ward? It’s such a dumb lie, but he’s living it anyway.

So Scott has accepted the elephant in the room, and the fact that it’ll never be addressed. Despite how much he  _ likes  _ Stiles, how impressed he is by his intelligence and fuck-you survivalism, how much he’s starting to think that in a different life they could have been friends--

No. Despite all that, Scott has accepted the superficial nature of their relationship, a thin candy coating over nothing at all. He would never ask for more than Stiles could give. 

So when Stiles offers it, murmuring a quiet, “Scott, what happened to you?” under his breath, it takes a second for Scott’s brain to reboot. It doesn’t help that he’s been dozing for the past twenty minutes, ever since they switched places so Stiles could take a turn driving. 

He blinks and lifts his head off of the window, wincing when his skin sticks to the glass. The sun is just edging below the horizon, smothering Stiles’ profile in gray cotton light. His pale fingers twitch on the steering wheel, tapping out an unsettled rhythm. He is clearly Not Comfortable.

“We had a rough day, dude. Why don’t we leave the heavy stuff for another time?” Scott says, offering Stiles an out. 

The van passes underneath a highway sign that lists the Beacon Hills exit as thirty miles away, and it makes Scott freeze in place. Unbelievably, after three days of running and fighting for their lives, saturated in hellfire fear, they’re fifteen minutes from home. Maybe there won’t be  _ another time _ . They’re not staying together, are they? Why would they?

Scott has wanted nothing more than to be back in Beacon Hills, but now that he’s almost there, the idea is strangely unpleasant. Besides Deaton, no one in this town gives a shit about him. As far as they know, he’s a criminal running from his legally-mandated duty to society. How is he supposed to get excited about returning to that kind of antipathy? He’s jumping into a pit of snakes.

“Don’t do that,” Stiles mumbles, bringing Scott’s attention back in focus. “Don’t try and shut this down just because you know it skeeves me out. I  _ want  _ you to share.”

_ Why?  _

“Are you gonna share, too?” Scott asks instead.

“Is that the only way you’ll trust me?”

He doesn’t even have to think about it. “No. I already trust you.”

Stiles shifts in his seat, but remains silent.

Scott takes a deep breath. “Okay, first I have to confess something. I don’t, uh. I don’t go to Devenford Prep.”

Snorting, Stiles shoots him a look, his raised eyebrow barely visible in the thick dusk. “I kind of figured.”

“What? No, you didn’t,” Scott protests, offended despite himself. “I covered for that pretty well.”

“Sure you did, buddy.” Stiles’ voice is oozing with condescension. 

Scott huffs. “How’d you know?”

“Alright, maybe I didn’t  _ know _ , per se, but I had my suspicions. I mean, come on, Scott. What are the chances that a Devenford Prep kid has asthma? If you can afford that school, you can afford new lungs.”

“They have scholarship students.”

“Yeah, but only three of them are based on academics. The rest are based on athletics. You don’t look like you’re particularly gifted at lacrosse.”

“I could be one of the academic scholarship students,” Scott points out, slightly insulted. “What, am I not smart enough?”

“I’ve known you for like two days, how the hell am I supposed to know how academic you are? That’s why I said I didn’t know for sure. But come on, Scott, what are the odds? That scholarship is competitive as hell. And you do  _ not  _ seem like the type of kid who’d go ape shit on someone else’s car.”

Scott sighs and tips his head back against his seat. “Fine, it was a dumb lie. God, I suck, don’t I?”

Stiles snorts again. “Yeah, I wouldn’t quit your day job. You wouldn’t make it as a spy.” He sobers up. “So why’d you lie?”

Stiffening, Scott looks down at his lap, where his fingers are playing with a hole in his jeans. Admitting he lied is one thing, but admitting the truth is another. How can he explain this so Stiles understands? How does he explain what it’s like to live under an umbrella term you never asked for, watching as people judge you for it over and over again? How does he explain that being labelled a state ward invites all kinds of wariness, pity, condescension, and mocking, even from people who should know better? What if Stiles is just like those other people?

He thinks back to earlier today. When he woke up in the back of the van, nauseated and afraid, just looking over at Stiles had calmed him down. Seeing his hard eyes and the determined set of his jaw made Scott think of how Stiles had survived this long, and how he was clearly too stubborn to give up on himself. And then when they fought together, working seamlessly without saying a word, and the way Stiles took charge, his mind capturing a thousand little details Scott would have missed--

He might not have gotten this far without Stiles. And then where would he be?

“I’m a state ward,” he finally chokes out.

The silence that follows feels sharp-edged and biting. Scott waits and waits, the tip of his finger wiggling in the hole in his jeans, widening it bit by bit. 

“And?” Stiles finally says, shattering the quiet. “Is that all?”

Scott startles. “Oh. Uh, no, I guess not.”

“Did you think I’d care?” Stiles ask incredulously.

Bristling, Scott snaps, “Some people do, Stiles. You should see how people treat me sometimes. They’re mean. They’re  _ awful _ . They look at my clothes and my skin and they hear that I’m a state ward and they think I’m a criminal, or a crack baby, or inbred, or  _ whatever _ . And I  _ hate  _ it. So don’t sit here and tell me I’m making something out of nothing.”

As a general rule, Scott doesn’t have outbursts. It never does him any good, and it just reinforces people’s assumption that he’s violent and can’t be trusted. State wards have that reputation. Plus, it reminds him too much of his dad, angry and overblown. 

So he can’t help thinking that he might have just ruined everything. Can you do that? Wreck everything with just a couple of sentences? 

When Stiles speaks, though, his voice is mild. “You’re right. I don’t know any of that. I’m sorry.”

Surprised, Scott takes too long to respond. “Oh, um...thanks. I’m sorry, too, I shouldn’t have--”

“No. Don’t apologize for sticking up for yourself,” Stiles says firmly. “So what happened?”

Scott shrugs. “My dad left a long time ago. It was just me and my mom for a while. She’s amazing. We were happy.” He pauses. This is always the part he hates explaining. People judge his mom like they have any right to do it, like being poor is her fault, like she’s too stupid or lazy to function. Or they look at him with pity, like he drew the short straw when it came to parents. He knows, and has always known, that the opposite is true; he’s the luckiest guy in the universe when it comes to his mom. He wouldn’t trade her for all of the money in the world. 

“She worked three different jobs to make ends meet,” he explains. “So she wasn’t home a lot. I used to stay in the library after school because I didn’t feel like walking home to an empty house. One day the librarian asked me why, and I told her.” One of the biggest mistakes of his life. “She got the principal and they started asking me a bunch of questions, like how often I ate or how late my mom stayed out working. Fast forward two weeks, and I’m being dragged out of my house by CPS agents, all my clothes stuffed in a trash bag.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“Because I’m not,” Scott says. He knows he should sound angry, should  _ be  _ angry, but that rage faded out a long time ago. Now he’s just tired. “They meant well, but my mom and I were happy, and they took me away from that. I would have been better off with her.”

“Where is she now? Shouldn’t she have visitation rights?” 

“I don’t know,” Scott murmurs. “They told me she could visit me, but no one ever followed through with it. I keep trying to find her, but our house was foreclosed on, and I haven’t been able to track her down since.” The only question is, why hasn’t  _ she _ tried to find  _ him _ ? It’s not like the state home is in a secret location. On his worst days, Scott assumed it was because she was glad to get rid of him. 

“That’s such bureaucratic bullshit,” Stiles says. There isn’t an ounce of pity or sympathy in his voice, just righteous indignation, and it’s a balm on Scott’s nerves. It’s like someone is actually working on his side, for once, instead of just on his behalf. The difference between the two is as thick as cinderblock. “So why are you being unwound?” 

Scott smiles, lopsided and bitter. “I had an asthma attack and passed out before I could take my state exam. They marked it as a failure instead of an incomplete. Anything below a certain score is considered a waste of resources, so I was shipped off to, you know, better realize my potential.”

“Jesus,” Stiles breathes. “What absolute fuckery.” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel; Scott can practically hear the wheels turning in his head. “It makes sense, though.”

Scott’s jaw drops. “Excuse me?” he blurts, his heart starting to race. It’s not that he’s angry, because anger requires an understanding of the situation; he’s shell-shocked. Stiles thinks it makes  _ sense  _ that--

“Shit, shit, no!” Stiles turns to him, wide-eyed and panicked. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant…” His hand gestures uselessly as he tries to find his words. “It makes sense that budget cuts and bad luck are why you’re being unwound, instead of criminal or behavioral issues. It makes sense that it’s not your fault. That’s all I meant.”

Dazed, Scott tips his head back against his seat and laughs. “What the fuck, Stiles?”

“I know, I know,” Stiles mumbles. “I’m such a dumbass. I was just trying to…”

When he doesn’t continue, Scott looks over at him. It’s too dark to be certain, but Stiles looks almost...embarrassed. Shy. Very much Not Stiles. “What?” Scott prompts. 

“I don’t know. You’re just….I mean, you got upset at the idea of taking clothing from a donation box when literally no one would miss them,” Stiles says. “Who does that?”   


Blushing, Scott stammers, “Um, thank you? I think?”

Stiles shrugs. “Me? I’m a classic problem child. Fighting, bad grades, vandalism. Did I mention that I’ve been in prison. I murdered six men. I’m actually on the terrorist watchlist.” 

Scott barks out a laugh. “There’s no way any of that is true. You’re too smart to get bad grades. Your ego couldn’t take it.”

“ _ That’s  _ what you took from all that?” Stiles shoots him an alarmed look. “ _ That’s  _ the least believable part of that whole thing?”

“Well, the rest of it goes without saying. If you got in fights or tried to kill someone, you wouldn’t be here, you’d be in the hospital. In a coma. Eating through a tube.” Scott leans over and elbows Stiles in the ribcage. “Get it? Because you’d lose. Because you can’t fight.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Stiles says, his voice flat. His face flickers with something like guilt. Like all of Stiles, it’s a story Scott doesn’t know written in a language he doesn’t understand. 

Then he remembers their fight with the parts pirate. There had been a moment, just one, when Stiles was on his knees, the gun in his hand, aiming down the sights at the girl’s chest. Scott only remembers the moment because of the expression on Stiles’ face, hard and angry and dark like obsidian. It had scared him, but that fear was lost amidst all the other, more salient fears fighting for dominance. Scott had interrupted him, and Stiles had taken her out with the syringe instead. 

He shot out two tires from dozens of yards away; he wouldn’t have missed a target at point blank range. The question is, would he have taken the shot in the first place? What if Scott hadn’t said anything?

From the troubled look on Stiles’ face, it’s a distinct possibility. Does that make Stiles a bad person?

Scott thinks back to the adrenaline racing through his body during that fight. The fear that if the parts pirate won, he and Stiles would be unwound within hours. The ferocious look on her bloodstained face. She had no qualms about their fate. How much concern should they be expected to show for hers? 

She didn’t deserve to die, though. Or even if she did, who are they to make that decision? They can’t take other people’s lives into their own hands like that, or they’re no better than the parts pirates and juvey cops trying to throw them on the chop shop table. 

He stares at Stiles’ profile, tracing every line, taking note of every imperfection, trying to read an answer in the lines on his skin. Would he have taken the shot? What would Scott think if he had?

Stiles frowns over at him. “What?” he asks, slightly defensive. “Why are you staring?”

Blinking, Scott turns away. “Sorry.”

Sighing, Stiles flicks on his turn signal and merges into the right lane. With a start, Scott realizes it’s an exit lane; the ramp is coming up in a few miles. They’re almost back in Beacon Hills.

“Almost home,” Stiles says bitterly, as if reading his thoughts. “Do I sound petty if I say this place has a certain hellish aura to it? Like it’s full of nothing but demons and their hormonal teenage spawn?”

“I think that’s called ‘misplaced anger,’” Scott says mildly. 

“Oh, look at  _ you _ , all in touch with your emotions and shit. How disgustingly well-adjusted of you.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Makes me sick to my stomach. I think I’m gonna puke.”

“Well, aim out the window.”

Stiles laughs, sharp and short. 

Then he pulls onto the exit ramp, and they both fall silent. Within minutes, Scott starts seeing familiar landmarks: the Beacon Hills Preserve, the farms dotted outside city limits, even the angry billboards put up by some religious nutjob. All of it brings back childhood memories that have soured over the last few days, discolored by the fact that those memories, and the brain that holds them, now belong to the government. 

The irony doesn’t escape him; this town is where his fate was sealed and he was betrayed by those who were supposed to take care of him. And yet here he is, crawling back like a sheep to the slaughter.

What if he can’t get to Deaton? What if he and Stiles separate, and the first thing that happens is he gets caught again? His luck can only hold out for so long, and he can’t count on escaping if he’s captured again. 

If the arrhythmic tapping of his fingers and the muttering under his breath are any indication, Stiles is having the same thoughts. “I need some air,” he blurts, his hand slamming down on the window buttons. Cold air rushes into the car, and Scott leans into it, letting it cool down skin he hadn’t even realized was heated. He closes his eyes. 

“Where should we dump the van?” he asks. The wind is cold on his lips, his teeth, the back of his tongue.

“Junkyard?” Stiles wonders. “Or should we just dump it in the middle of the preserve? There might be security cameras in a junkyard.”

“Even the preserve gets some traffic, though. Especially at night.” Scott takes in a breath that bites at his lungs, making him cough.

And cough.

And cough.

Shit.

Too late, he reaches over and pulls at his own window button, watching as it slowly rises back into place. The coughs are bone-deep now, rattling his ribs and spine. Each time, he gets less and less air. Sweat is starting to dot his hairline and lower back. 

“Scott? Are you okay? Is this an asthma attack?” Stiles’ voice is taut with rising panic, his eyes darting back and forth between Scott and the road in front of him.

Scott just nods at him, wincing when it makes his vision swim. With a trembling hand, he reaches down into the pocket of his jeans, remembering the inhaler he placed there.

Nothing.

His own panic starts to swell. He reaches for the other pocket, his fingers finding nothing but lint. It has to be here, right? Where else would it be?

He hits the release button for his seatbelt and flings it off. He’s clumsy and weak, but he manages to fumble his way over the center console and into the back of the van, where he starts casting around for his inhaler. It’s too dark to see, so he’s stuck feeling around for it, grabbing onto anything metal or plastic and throwing it to the side when it doesn’t have the right shape. 

“Scott?” Stiles says over his shoulder. The overhead light flicks on, and while it’s dim and placed all the way in the front, it helps. Scott is starting to get desperate, his chest stinging with the effort of drawing in air, but he can’t find it. There are only a few objects in the van, and he flips over every single one of them, even digging through the weapons box. Nothing comes up.

It’s gone. It must have fallen out in the woods where they were caught, miles away and out of reach. 

All of this running, all of this fear of being unwound, and this is what gets him; his own body. His own gimpy lungs, betraying him right when he needs them. What shitty, shitty luck. 

He collapses against the back of the passenger seat, too weak to make it back to the front.

“Scott? Scott!” Stiles reaches back and slaps his shoulder, shaking him as if he’s falling asleep. Maybe he is; the light is getting dimmer and dimmer, and the rush of the road and wind all around them is growing softer. Fainting from an asthma attack isn’t supposed to be that common, right? Figures the one thing Scott excels at would be a respiratory disorder; he’s fainting for the second time in only a few days. Will he wake up this time?

Stiles keeps calling his name, this time slapping the side of Scott’s head, but Scott can’t find it in himself to respond. He’s getting tired. 

“Scott!” Stiles shouts, his voice reverberating off the plastic walls of the van.

It’s the last thing Scott hears before hearing nothing at all. 


	19. Chapter 19

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Stiles doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know anyone with asthma besides Scott. He remembers a couple of kids having attacks when they were in kindergarten, but they were always a one-time event, quickly solved with a hasty transplant. What is he supposed to do? Scott’s inhaler is clearly missing, and Stiles doesn’t know of any other treatments. And he can’t ask Scott, who seems to have passed out. Or is he dying?

Fuck.

Scott can’t die. Not now, not after everything they’ve been through, not when they’re so close to their endgame, not when it would be the biggest middle finger ever, fate snuffing out someone good before they’ve even had a chance to live. 

Who was Scott going to look for once he got back to Beacon Hills? His mom? He doesn’t know where she is, though. A teacher? The police? Maybe if Stiles knew, he could take Scott to someone who might know what to do. But no, he’s shit out of luck.

The only other option is the hospital. Stiles knows the way, has been there countless times for his mom’s doctor’s appointments or to visit her while she was an inpatient. He knows they’re equipped to deal with this kind of stuff, and could save Scott in a heartbeat. 

He also knows they’re constantly drowning in status updates about local AWOLs, and that his and Scott’s faces are mostly likely plastered all over the hospital walls. If he goes there, Scott will almost certainly be unwound. 

Which is worse? Dying, or being unwound? Stiles can hardly decide that for himself; he has no right to make that decision on Scott’s behalf. His heart pounds painfully in his sternum, his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel until it creaks. 

There’s one other thing to consider; if he brings Scott to the hospital, there’s no guarantee that Stiles will get away. He’d be apprehended as soon as he stepped foot inside. The smart thing to do, the  _ pragmatic  _ thing, would be to keep going. There’s a stoplight up ahead; if he turns left, it’ll take him to the hospital, but if he goes straight, it’ll take him into the industrial part of town. It’d be quiet at this time of night, full of empty warehouses and little to no foot traffic. It would be so easy to pull into an abandoned loading dock. The van wouldn’t be found for days, and no one could possibly trace it to him. Stiles would be long gone, searching out his father so he can get his life back on track. 

And who knows? Maybe Scott would be okay. Maybe he would wake up in the van and make his own way home. 

Or maybe he’d be dead. Another local tragedy, another loss of precious resources, another statistic for the Sheriff’s crime reports and a talking point for harvest camps. Scott would be hailed as an example of why the world needs unwinding;  _ when left to their own devices, these precious gifts of life can’t take care of themselves. Send your child to a harvest camp; save their life by giving it a higher purpose.  _

Stiles bites at his thumbnail so hard the skin around it starts to bleed, the copper taste pricking at his tongue. The stoplight is close now, a bright green star set against a black, moonless sky. 

His foot presses down on the gas pedal.


	20. Chapter 20

Scott drips back into consciousness, as inefficient and weak as a leaky faucet. Sounds and colors are nothing but blurs, his eyes aching from the hellfire light above him, his stomach heaving as the earth moves underneath him.

Things come into focus just enough for a picture to form. The earth isn’t moving; he’s on a gurney, squeaky wheels and starched sheets. The lights are fluorescent and industrial, and they hurt because he’s on his back, passing underneath them one after the other. His breath is hot on his face because he’s wearing a mask, thick and plastic, the strings cutting behind his ears and around his head, oxygen hissing into his nose and mouth.

He’s in a hospital. He had an asthma attack in the back of the van, and now he’s in the hospital. Again. But where are they taking him? To be unwound?

He wants to fight back. He knows that’s what Stiles would do, scratching and clawing and shouting until he was physically restrained. But Scott doesn’t have it in him right now. That’s why he’s here, right? Because he’s weak, down to the marrow in his bones and the air in his lungs. Stiles is probably miles away by now. Scott can’t blame him.

It takes all of his energy just to tip his head back, looking for the person pushing his gurney.

It’s a man he doesn’t recognize, dark skin and a troubled mouth. “Just a little longer. We’re almost there.” He leans in, his breath smelling like coffee. “Soon, it’ll all be over. But you need to go back to sleep.”

His name tag reads Geyer.

And then Scott is asleep.

⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫

“Scott?”

The word barely penetrates the fog in his brain, a candle in the biggest night. He just wants the shadows back.

The voice won’t let him. “Scott. Come on, Scott, I know you can hear me.”

Yes, he can hear it, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. Waking up means more of the same, more of the terror and violence, and last time--

Last time, he was on his way to be unwound.

His heart pumps faster and faster, pushing the dark out of his veins until all that’s left is panic. His eyes flash open, blurry and unfocused.

For one impossible second, he wonders if it actually happened. Was he really unwound? Everything feels the same, but how would he know the difference?

How would he know  _ anything _ ? His brain would be in pieces, scattered inside dozens of foreign skulls. Plus, the voice called him Scott. The means he’s still himself, right?

That doesn’t mean he’s safe.

“There you are,” the voice says mildly, and something pricks at Scott’s awareness. He  _ knows  _ this voice, doesn’t he? He turns his head this way and that, trying to find the source. He spots him sitting in a chair next to the bed, dressed in jeans and a polo, his hands folded in his lap.

Deaton.

“Oh my god,” Scott breathes. He tries to heave himself into a sitting position, but his arm gives out on him. He flops back onto the pillow.

Deaton gets to his feet, putting a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “Hey, take it easy. Your body just went through hell, it’s not ready for--”

Scott ignores him, reaching up and grasping at the material of Deaton’s shirt and tugging him down into a hug. It’s not the best position for an embrace, but Scott doesn’t care, holding tightly to Deaton like he’ll disappear if Scott lets go. Maybe he will; that’s what happened last time. Deaton gave him a hug right before Scott left to take his exam, and Scott never saw him again. Until now.

When Deaton finally pulls away, there’s a fond smile on his face. Scott stares up at him in awe, trying and this time succeeding in pulling himself into a sitting position. He ignores the sudden nausea. “How are you here? How am  _ I  _ here? Where exactly is  _ here _ ? What’s--”

“One question at a time, please,” Deaton interrupts, sitting back down in the chair, still smiling.

Scott grins back, unable to hide the euphoria threatening to burst him open like a balloon. His heart is beating wildly. “Sorry, I just….this isn’t what I expected to find when I woke up.  _ If  _ I woke up.” His smile fades. “The last thing I remember is being in the hospital. I thought I was….I thought they were taking me to be….”

Deaton puts a hand on his leg, his hand warm through the bedsheet. “I’m sorry you were kept sedated. If you had woken up, we would have had to explain what was happening to keep you from panicking, and there was no guarantee we wouldn’t be overheard.”

“What  _ did  _ happen?”

“Dr. Geyer happened,” Deaton says. “He smuggled you out of the hospital before the authorities could get there.”

“Why?” Who the hell is Dr. Geyer? He doesn’t know Scott; what does he gain from helping a complete stranger? And an unwind, at that?

“His reasons are his own,” Deaton responds cryptically. “The point is, he’s been helping us for years, finding whatever unwinds he can gain access to and sneaking them off of hospital property. He’s saved a lot of lives that way.”

The questions are pooling in Scott’s head faster than he can sort through. “Who’s ‘us’? What is this place?” He looks around, finally noticing the room around him. It’s small and sparse, filled with just the bed, the chair, a nightstand, and a dresser, a large window set against the far wall. Despite all that, it’s cozy. The sheets on his bed are soft and well-worn, not starched and industrial, and the curtains shading the window look heavy and warm.

“It’s a safe house.”

Scott wrinkles his nose, incredulous. “A what?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Deaton says, shrugging. “It’s a place where we keep unwinds until they age out of the unwinding process.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Deaton raises an eyebrow. “Considering the fact that you kicked AWOL, I thought you’d understand why. Everyone is here because of the same reason you are: they won’t want to be unwound.”

Scott shrinks back, ashamed. Of course that’s why they’re here. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--”

The words echo back in his head, and he stops.

_ I don’t want to be unwound _ .

Stiles.

“Stiles. Where is he?” Scott asks, suddenly vibrating with urgency as tension rushes back into his body. How was that not the first question out of his mouth? It should have taken precedence. Stiles could be dead, or dying, or in pieces, and Scott is too busy playing twenty questions to bother giving him a thought. “Did he drop me off at the hospital? We have to go find him, I can’t--”

Deaton squeezes his leg again. “Stiles is fine,” he assures. “He’s actually the one who got Dr. Geyer’s attention.”

Scott wants to believe him, but his fear won’t let him, and the information doesn’t add up; how would Stiles have known to seek out Dr. Geyer? “He is? How? Stiles knew about the safe house? He didn’t say anything--”

“Please, Scott, slow down,” Deaton says. His voice is calm and round around the edges, like the one he uses around sick and scared animals. “Just let me explain.”

Taking a deep breath that does nothing to calm his nerves, Scott nods. His hands start fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, which he’s only now realizing is the one he passed out in. The shirt Stiles took out of the donation box.

“Stiles didn’t drop you off at the hospital. He dragged you in. It didn’t take long for you two to be recognized, and he was detained while they took you away for treatment.”

Scott’s heart starts to pound. “Why would he go in? He had to know they’d recognize us. Why didn’t he just--”

“He was worried,” Deaton explains. He holds Scott’s gaze, something important stuffed into every word. Scott only wishes he knew what it was. “He wanted to make sure you were alive. He didn’t want to leave not knowing.”

The pounding gets heavier and higher, a steady drum beat in the base of Scott’s throat. Stiles did that for him? Risked being caught and unwound just to make sure Scott didn’t die? “But he’s okay  _ now _ , right?”

Eyes softening, Deaton nods. “Dr. Geyer saw what was happening and intervened. He got Stiles alone in a room without hospital surveillance, explained who he was, and tried to get him out of the hospital.”

“ _ Tried? _ ”

“He wouldn’t leave until Dr. Geyer promised to get you out, too.”

Scott remembers the squeaking gurney and fluorescent lights.  _ We’re almost there. Just a little longer _ .

He winds his fingers together in his lap and stares down at them. He has a million more questions itching to escape his head. Who runs the safe house? Where is it? How does it work? How are they not caught by juvey cops? How long has Deaton been a part of it?

Mostly, though, he just wants to see Stiles.

“Scott?” Deaton asks quietly, and Scott looks up. For the first time in all the years Scott has known him, he looks….uncertain. Vulnerable. Guilty. The sight is to surprising, Scott almost misses what he says next. “You know I tried to get to you, right? That’s why they took you away from the hospital so quickly. I was on my way with legal representation, and they wanted you gone before I could get there and stop them.” He leans back and stares at his own lap; Scott blinks when he realizes Deaton’s hands are clasped the same way Scott’s are, long fingers winding together.

He blames himself, Scott realizes. For Scott being carted away and almost unwound, for Scott slipping through the cracks in the first place. He feels responsible.

Scott deflates. “Dr. Deaton, none of this is your fault,” he says softly. “You have done so much for me over the years. You’re the only one I knew I could turn to. The last thing I want is for you to blame yourself for something that’s a lot bigger than you or me.”

Deaton’s expression is as subtle as ever, but his eyes are bright. “Scott, I--”

The door bursts open, revealing a grumpy, rumpled Stiles. His focus is on his flannel shirt, his fingers buttoning it up with precision. “Alright, Doc, I slept for four whole hours. Can I come back now?” He looks up, his eyes widening. “Oh my god, Scott!”

Scott barely has time to brace himself before he’s tackled to the bed, arms wrapped around his neck. On instinct, Scott wraps his arms around Stiles’ waist. As quickly as it left, the euphoria is back, a buzzing in his skin that pushes a laugh out of his mouth and a shiver down his spine.

Stiles pulls back and punches Scott in the shoulder. “That’s for almost dying on me, you asshole. Do you know how much that would have sucked? I almost passed out trying to dissect a fetal pig in biology, how do you think I would have reacted to a dead human?”

Scott rubs his shoulder as he sits up, still smiling. He knows he should banter back, keep things light. They just embraced like long-lost  _ somethings _ , but Scott can already feel Stiles pulling away, reconstructing personal boundaries as he moves over to the other end of the bed. He leans back against the footboard, arms crossed against his chest like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

But his eyes are telling; they keep darting over to Scott’s face. His bare toes are shoved under Scott’s thigh, a constant point of contact.

Fuck banter.

“I’m really glad you’re safe, Stiles,” he says, quiet and unashamed. Saying it out loud just makes him mean it more.

Now Stiles  _ does  _ look away, shifting restlessly. “Yeah, well, thank your boss and his criminal enterprise.”

“Technically, it’s not mine. It’s Talia Hale’s,” Deaton interjects. Scott’s eyes snap over to him, remembering where they left off. His brows furrow in concern, but Deaton is already standing up and patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll talk later, Scott,” he says. “For now, just rest. We’ll introduce you to everybody tomorrow morning.” His eyes flick to Stiles. “I trust you’ll keep an eye on him, Stiles?”

Stiles gives him a lazy two-finger salute. “I feel like this is the changing of the guard. That makes Scott a geriatric queen, and this is her fancy palace.” He schools his face into a serious expression. “I’ll protect her with my life, captain.”

Deaton doesn’t dignify that with a response. Patting Scott’s shoulder one last time, he gives them both another smile  into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him.

Scott turns to Stiles. “So long have I--”

“Frontotemporal dementia.”

Scott’s blinks. It’s not often that his brain fails him completely, but when it does, it doesn’t hold back. He’s not sure what the words mean, why they’re relevant, or how he should react to them; he can practically hear the hamster wheel in his head grind to a halt.

Stiles glances at him. He must see the bright neon  _ VACANT  _ sign shining over Scott’s head, because he goes on to explain, “It’s a kind of dementia. You know, the big scary brain disease? Brain degeneration, loss of neurons, personality changes, oh my.”

That’s one mystery solved. Scott nods, the wheel in his head starts turning enough for him to ask, “What about it?”

“My mom has it.”

It’s just four little words, delivered in a tone dripping with apathy, but Scott knows better. The way Stiles’ fingers are tight around his own forearms, the way his shoulders hunch up slightly, the way his face is careful and unmoving; there is years’ worth of baggage behind those four little words.

“It changed her,” Stiles continues. “She used to be the best mom ever. She took me roller-blading and held my hand at the doctor and baked cookies and everything. From scratch, too. None of that Nestle Toll House bullshit.”

“I like Nestle Toll House cookies.”

“God, you’re hopeless.” Stiles’ grin fades away before it can really take hold. His toes dig in deeper under Scott’s leg. “Now, she’s angry all the time. And paranoid. She thinks I’m out to get her.” He looks down at his lap, swallowing thickly. “She hates me.”

“It sounds like it’s just the disease, though, right?” Scott asks carefully.

Shrugging, Stiles runs a thumb across his lower lip. “Doesn’t matter. She had an episode, and while my dad was at work, she got an unwind form and signed it. She even forged my dad’s signature.”

Scott’s stomach drops. “Stiles,” he mumbles uselessly. How do you comfort someone in that situation? Not only did Stiles’ mom willingly sign away his rights, but she did it when she wasn’t even in her right mind. Stiles could have been unwound by now, all because someone diagnosed with a brain disease has control over his body. “What about your dad?” he asks.

“He tried, but some of the juvey cops were friends with guys he reported to IA for being dirty. The juvey sheriff was an old partner he had a bad falling out with. Basically, they had it against him.” He pauses. “My dad’s a cop, by the way. The Sheriff, actually.”

Scott huffs out a laugh. “I picked it up from context clues, but thanks anyway.”

Stiles smirks. “Just making sure you keep up. It’s a lot to take in.” Once again, the mirth doesn’t last long. His brow creases into angry lines, and he starts picking at his nails. “So yeah, my dad tried to intervene, but all these juvey cops had a vendetta. It turned into some real back-alley shit. I was stuffed into the trunk of a cop car from another county. They were going to pretend I escaped custody or something, ‘recapture’ me in another jurisdiction, and have me on the bus to a harvest camp before my dad could even make a phone call.”

Scott’s heart races in fear just thinking about it. He wants to touch Stiles, hug him,  _ something _ , but he holds back. “How’d you get away?”

At this point, Stiles barely has any nail left on his pointer finger. He switches to the middle one, picking and picking and picking. “You know that pile-up on the highway?” His jaw clenches. “Uh, that was me. I popped open the trunk, so the cop pulled over. I was trying to get away from her when she stepped in front of a car, and….you know the rest.”

Scott can’t help it anymore; he reaches out and puts a hand on Stiles’ ankle, his fingers clutching at the hem of his gray sweatpants. “Stiles, I’m so sorry.”

He snorts. “Why?”

“Because it sounds horrible.”

“I killed people, Scott.”

Scott’s eyes widen. “What? But it wasn’t your--”

“People died in that crash,” Stiles snaps. “Or they got hurt. All because of me.”

Scott opens his mouth, but Stiles isn’t done, his words gushing out like sickness. He thinks back to their conversation in the van, about the guilt and uncertainty that had poured off of Stiles like sweat. He remembers walking in the woods and telling Stiles about Cody and the pile-up, wondering why Stiles took it so hard. He’s apparently been carrying this guilt for a while, underground and pressurized, and it’s finally erupting.

“--makes sense now, right?” Stiles is saying, quiet and bitter. “Maybe Mom had the right idea. What’s the point of keeping my life if it means royally fucking up someone else’s? There is no way I’m worth any of that. God, maybe I  _ deserve _ to be--”

“Stop!” Scott finally shouts, practically digging his nails into Stiles’ ankle. He’s angry, but it’s the confusing sort of angry, the kind where he’s mad at Stiles for being mad at himself. He takes a deep breath and tries again. “You don’t deserve to be unwound, Stiles. The pile-up wasn’t your fault.”

“But--”

“But nothing, asshat. It was a shitty situation you were forced into, and you reacted. Everyone has a right to survive.” He thinks of Cody’s face, his wet and choking breaths. He cringes. “It sucks that people got hurt, but it wasn’t you. You didn’t create the mess that caused it.”

Stiles is staring at him, eyes glittering and desperate. “I want to believe you, Scott. I do. But I don’t know if that’s true.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Scott says firmly. “You can believe in Santa all you want, but that doesn’t make him real. Same goes for guilt.”

Stiles chokes out another laugh. “You’re such a loser.”

Scott smiles. “Rude.” He rubs his thumb against Stiles’ leg. “Thanks for telling me all of that.”

Shrugging again, Stiles looks away. “Well, I would have earlier when we were talking in the van, but then you had to go and stop breathing. God, Scott, not everything has to be about  _ you _ . And you think  _ I’m  _ rude.”

He’s clearly looking for a laugh, a glare, anything to deflect, but Scott doesn’t take the bait. “And that’s another thing. Thank you for saving my life. You could have been unwound, but you did it anyway, and I will always, always be grateful for that.”

Scott inhales carefully, surprised when the breath trembles in his lungs. He isn’t lying, but there’s more to it. Yes, he’s grateful, but he’s also terrified. What if Stiles really had been unwound because of him? In any state, divided or not, he couldn’t live with himself knowing that he was the reason Stiles no longer existed as he was meant to, whole and himself and alive. He wants nothing more than to make sure that never happens.

He shifts on the bed to face Stiles more completely, hand still squeezing his leg. He meets his gaze head on. “Please, please promise me you won’t ever do it again. I don’t care if I end up scattered around in dozens of different bodies; it would still kill me if you ended up dead or unwound because you were trying to help me.”

For a moment, Stiles just stares back at him, eyes unreadable. Scott wonders if he was too presumptuous. If Stiles only saved him because he was a dying human being, not because he was a dying Scott. He wonders if this is the part where Stiles says “Wasn’t planning on it” and leaves. He can already feel the heat rising in his face, threatening to vaporize him, when Stiles finally opens his mouth.

“While you were passed out and, you know,  _ not breathing _ , I realized that if you died, you would die not knowing that I trust you. With everything. My life, my safety, the low-budget Lifetime movie that is my tragic backstory. Everything.”

The lump is back in Scott’s throat, pulsating, swallowing his voice.

“We’re friends, Scott,” Stiles continues. “After everything we've been through, I know that much is true. And friends trust each other. They have each other’s back. So where do you get off telling me not to back you up when you inevitably wind up in trouble?”

Scott lets out a laugh that sounds more like a hiccup. He can’t remember the last time he had an honest-to-god friend. It feels better than he remembers.

“So are we good?” Stiles prompts, looking slightly worried. As if Scott might reject him. “Friends?”

“If it soothes your delicate sensibilities, sure.”

Stiles laughs, longer and fuller than Scott has ever heard, and sits up. “Shove over,” he snickers, pushing against Scott until they’re both laying down, shoulder-to-shoulder on a bed that’s too small for them.

Scott’s mind wanders for a minute, eventually settling on a memory from elementary school. One day after class, he got chased around by a couple of neighborhood dogs. He was just learning how to ride a bicycle, his feet still unsteady on the pedals. He led them into the forest, legs pumping as hard as they could, sweat dripping into his panicked eyes. Eventually he found a tree with sturdy branches, the lowest one just low enough for him to reach, and he went for it. He spent almost twenty minutes up in the branches of that tree, waiting for the dogs to lose interest and wander away. It was only when he hopped down to retrieve his bike, danger long gone, that he realized it was a cherry tree, beautiful and brash in its springtime splendor. The tree became his favorite spot in the woods. Fall, winter, spring, summer, full bloom or desolate, it didn’t matter. It was fascinating and warm and it was his his.

Stiles smells like pine soap and toothpaste and himself. His body is warm where it presses against Scott’s, along one arm and down their sides, comfortable and achingly  _ right _ .

Stiles shifts next to him, coughing nervously. “Hey, in the spirit of friendship and telling each other stuff, how about another Fun Stiles Fact?”

“Lay it on me.”

“I like girls. Girls are great. In fact, there has been a disturbing lack of girls in our lives over the past few days, and it’s a travesty. Someone should fix that immediately.”

“Is that your fun fact?”

“No. Well, I guess it’s technically a fact. So kind of. The fun part is that I like boys, too.”

Scott hasn’t been to that cherry tree in a couple of weeks, but he knows it’s still there. Strong and proud, loud-mouthed and brave, even in winter when its branches are bare.

“Fun Scott Fact: me, too.”

Maybe he could take Stiles to see it some day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you thought!


End file.
